Loony Tunes no. 59
1
New York Times
(blog) Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusets,
Amherst HERE
“The
invisible handshake pre-empts the invisible
hand of market competition. In this case shareholders, rather than
employees, bear the brunt of market failure.”
2
Multichannel News Todd Spangler HERE
"The
government is a bull in the proverbial china shop with unintended consequences
likely to destabilize the delicate work of the invisible hand, which
is working today in the TV ecosystem.”
3
By
Theo Spark HERE
“NO,
but it IS the very 'visible' hand of the 'invisible hand' (plunge protection
team) saving financials at the end of the day after the monkey-hammering of
precious metals to provide 'cover' for the financials HUGE naked short
positions.”
4
By Mungowitz HERE
“First, to my good
friend Gavin Kennedy: "Invisible
Hand" is the name of the show. It's not my fault. At least they
didn't call it "As If By An Invisible
Hand," so that's some consolation. (However, he does say "as
if by an invisible hand"
at about 6 6 minutes.
Gavin: Please do what you do.)”
[No.
I do not know what this is about – probably a joke. Come on, smile ….]
5
By The Editors HERE
"All the fun of the
fair: the Books from Finland editorial team is off on holiday! Don't desert us,
though: an invisible hand will
be posting features while we're away."
6
[No. I don't know what this is about.]
3 Comments:
I am thinking, and I don't think it is loony to think so, that "Schumpeter's gale" of 'creative destruction' is an invisible hand that lead businessmen and investors. In this respect the invisible hand is an economic seesaw that reestablishes an equilibrium by being creative and destructive simultaneously.
The genius of Freud captured creativity and destruction as the two basic instincts of humans. Schumpeter went one step further and recognized them as the yin yang or DNA of modern economic life.
Considering Adam Smith's intended meaning of the invisible hand in The Wealth of Nations, which leads business people to invest domestically, that is creativity. They are creating jobs for the locals. But when those business people see that investing locally is not paying off like it used to and instead invest abroad, that is destruction. By investing elsewhere they are destroying jobs at home.
But by investing against their own these same business people are also being creative, albeit in a backhanded manner. They are forcing domestic workers, if they wishes to sustain an enjoyable life style, to reinvent themselves and be more competitive. Moreover, as an unintended consequence those same business people are creating peace in the world by creating jobs abroad so that the inhabitants of underdeveloped countries don't become 'barbarians at the gate' - growing resentful toward the rich nations and going to war with them because they're not sharing the wealth.
airth,
You are at it again.
Schumpeter’s “perennial gale of creative destruction’ was a metaphor for outcomes – the evolutionary process by which products were constantly improved, even revolutionised, and destroyed, within the market process itself. It was not the cause of any outcome, as it never ends. Nor had it anything to do with ‘equilibrium’, itself a peculiar notion for a constantly changing process operating since our ancestors left the forests.
Freud, whatever his metaphoric contributions to psychology, had nothing to do with “economic life”.
The IH metaphor does not “lead business people” to do anything/everything. Smith referred to an identified sub-group of business people “led” by their “insecurity” (we have been through this numerous times) to unintentionally add to “domestic revenue and employment”, for which the IH metaphor describes in the "more striking and interesting manner". If this sub-group invests locally they add to the local economy by the amounts they could have sent abroad (the ‘whole is the sum of its parts’).
These local market processes are not the sole domains of capital investment. Much investment has always left one domestic domain for other, foreign, domains (since the 14TH century and before). The 21TH century is no exception.
Modern notions that “self-interest” always leads, via some existing entity called the “invisible hand”, is an invention from the early days of the Cold War. It had nothing to do with Adam Smith.
The “barbarians at the gate” is picturesque but imaginary (a metaphor drawn from the collapse of the Western half of the Roman Empire in the 5TH century). The wars from the 17TH through to the 20 TH century, and the side-wars of the European contries with the poor two-thirds of the world, were either between rich countries or by rich countries on the poor.
The latest versions of terrorism are about theological motivations not wars about “sharing wealth”. Religion is indifferent to wealth.
Gavin
The invisible hand has become too obvious to be taken seriously.
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