The Global Accounting Scam

Several months ago a professor at the University of North Carolina published findings that turned beliefs about the economy upside down. Health improves, he said, as the economy goes down. When the economy declines, to a point at least, deaths, smoking, obesity, heavy drinking, heart disease and some kinds of back problems all decline as well.

"Sounds unlikely," said the New York Times. And indeed it is, by the standard reckonings at least. We all know that an expanding economy makes us better off – or do we? Another study, this one in England, found that shopping, which is the drive train of the entire economy, and which is supposed to make people feel good, actually can make them depressed. "For significant numbers, dissatisfaction is now part of the shopping process," one of the authors said. (As though we needed a study to tell us that.)

What's going on here? How could we feel better when the experts say we should feel worse, and worse when they say we should feel better? Could it be that economists don't know up from down to begin with?
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An excellent primer on basic economics — a must read:

KEYNESIAN ECONOMICS....THE SEQUEL!

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post bemoaning the fact that most people don't know what Keynesian economics actually is. All very well, but I sort of cheated by just leaving it there, didn't I? Shouldn't I have gone on to provide a little more detail?

Fine. Here it is. A cheap and cheerful explanation of Keynesian economics for people who don't really want to know much about it. Warning: all real economists are invited to move along and find something else to do. This is not for you.

Right then. So here is Keynesian Economics in Three Simple Steps™:
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  thanks to reading & writing

In the Bush Administration, Loyalty Is a One-Way Street Only

There is a story I have now heard three times about Larry Lindsey's first day in the White House in January 2001. At one point he met with the now- headless Council of Economic Advisers staff--no CEA council members had yet been named. "Well," he began. "You should all be happy: the people who understand economics are now back in charge."

Today such a claim sounds totally ridiculous--mendacious, or simply mad.
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