[but we desperately need a new constitution.]

Totally with TNF here.  Most would consider me a traitor for saying this, but we desperately need a new constitution.

Yes, we do. The Constitution as it exists is fundamentally incapable of dealing with the realities of governing a modern, industrial state.

Except that it has been dealing with them consistently and admirably: more so than constitutions of most other nations, in fact. So, this particular theoretical observation seems to have no confirmation in empirical fact

In any case, I doubt that reducing the age when one can be elected to Congress would be on most people's list of 1000 most essential constitutional amendments. It's not like we have a gazillion young politicians that are elected at the first moment they would be allowed to by law.  So, I suspect, lifting the age restriction would have, at most, a marginal impact on the actual composition of Congress.  Getting elected is a tough business, and few youngsters (at least those without the benefit a rich and famous daddy provides) would be able to do it, anyway.   

I'm guessing, but I think Obama appeals to Hispanic voters because his name is "not Jackson or Sharpton" but has a Latin flare with vowels at the end.  

The "Latin flare" of this name is substantially less pronounced than its Irish flare. In fact, it is so quiet, that I do not think a Spanish speaker has been born, who can hear it.

[or rather which parts of it will have to be reformed/changed]

The interesting aspect of all this is whether the current economic model can survive in a non-growth context, or rather which parts of it will have to be reformed/changed.

This is far more interesting than the capitalism stuff IMO.

Current economic model, shmurrent economic model. The economy is changing all the time. Today's institutions are quite distinct from those 100 years ago, and will, of course, change in the future, growth or no growth.  Any society that has an economy that isn't growing at an accustomed rate will have a lot of unhappy people: irrespective of what its institutions are. Both questions are about as interesting, as figuring out whether sun will come up tomorrow or not: and about as innovative. I still have no freaking clue what makes anybody find any of this anything worth talking about. Class, actual producers, what's not. Gosh.

One last question: If you find the entire topic so extremely uninteresting and pointless why do you feel the need to comment in this thread

Because, as an actual economist (and the moderator of this board), I find it personally painful to watch. Illiteracy hurts.

The interesting aspect of all this is whether the current economic model can survive in a non-growth context, or rather which parts of it will have to be reformed/changed.

This is far more interesting than the capitalism stuff IMO.

Current economic model, shmurrent economic model. The economy is changing all the time. Today's institutions are quite distinct from those 100 years ago, and will, of course, change in the future, growth or no growth.  Any society that has an economy that isn't growing at an accustomed rate will have a lot of unhappy people: irrespective of what its institutions are. Both questions are about as interesting, as figuring out whether sun will come up tomorrow or not: and about as innovative. I still have no freaking clue what makes anybody find any of this anything worth talking about. Class, actual producers, what's not. Gosh.

Ah, just so that nobody has to recall. Inflation is growth in prices, as expressed, normally, in money. Deflation is negative inflation. If there are fewer goods out there and the money supply is unchanged, then, in general, you get INFLATION, not DEFLATION: you know, if the number of dollars hasn't changed, and the number of cows decreased, cheese will become more expensive, not less. Should I continue on the rest as well?

The same logic can be applied to the climate change debate.  Using surface temperature as a measure for climate change, while a rough representation, does not take everything into account.

In the end, the best measure is to measure total energy input and total energy output of the climate system.

Using surface temperature measurements would be like measuring the air temperature in a small kitchen to test whether the pot of water on the flame is heating up or cooling down.

Would you mind clarifying, what is this about. To me (and, apparently, to some others) it appears to be a complete non sequitur.

Ah, just so that nobody has to recall. Inflation is growth in prices, as expressed, normally, in money. Deflation is negative inflation. If there are fewer goods out there and the money supply is unchanged, then, in general, you get INFLATION, not DEFLATION: you know, if the number of dollars hasn't changed, and the number of cows decreased, cheese will become more expensive, not less. Should I continue on the rest as well?

The same logic can be applied to the climate change debate.  Using surface temperature as a measure for climate change, while a rough representation, does not take everything into account.

In the end, the best measure is to measure total energy input and total energy output of the climate system.

Using surface temperature measurements would be like measuring the air temperature in a small kitchen to test whether the pot of water on the flame is heating up or cooling down.

Would you mind clarifying, what is this about. To me (and, apparently, to some others) it appears to be a complete non sequitur.

Merely me talking to myself... trying to understand your convoluted posts by framing it in a context I better understand.

Well, it's all very simple. When wombats fly, crocodiles sing. I think that's clear enough.

Ah, just so that nobody has to recall. Inflation is growth in prices, as expressed, normally, in money. Deflation is negative inflation. If there are fewer goods out there and the money supply is unchanged, then, in general, you get INFLATION, not DEFLATION: you know, if the number of dollars hasn't changed, and the number of cows decreased, cheese will become more expensive, not less. Should I continue on the rest as well?

The same logic can be applied to the climate change debate.  Using surface temperature as a measure for climate change, while a rough representation, does not take everything into account.

In the end, the best measure is to measure total energy input and total energy output of the climate system.

Using surface temperature measurements would be like measuring the air temperature in a small kitchen to test whether the pot of water on the flame is heating up or cooling down.

Would you mind clarifying, what is this about. To me (and, apparently, to some others) it appears to be a complete non sequitur.

Ah, just so that nobody has to recall. Inflation is growth in prices, as expressed, normally, in money. Deflation is negative inflation. If there are fewer goods out there and the money supply is unchanged, then, in general, you get INFLATION, not DEFLATION: you know, if the number of dollars hasn't changed, and the number of cows decreased, cheese will become more expensive, not less. Should I continue on the rest as well?

Ok.

1. I do hate the idiotic lables: "capitalism", "socialism" or whatever. These are not terms that have any meaning in modern economics. They do have a very dusty library smell, believe me. You want to be describing actual historic/contemporary institutions - be my guest. But then describe them - and don't post ridiculous lables.

2. Private property and markets are things I can, sort of, understand. The former means people have the right to use and/or dispose of their assets and the latter that they can actually exchange those assets if they so like. Now, in a modern world all those things come w/ zillions of limitations (technological, legal, political, etc., etc) - some of these justifiable, others not, but that's a completely separate issue. Anyway, at least these are the things I can understand.

3. Growth. Growth of what? If you mean growth of consumption of certain goods, population, etc. - well, ok, I get it. If you mean growth of GDP - that notion in itself is completely dependent on the existence of markets, because unless we have prices, we don't even know what to add up. Estimates of GDP (and its growth) for places like the old USSR or the modern North Korea have a lot of magic in them

4. Why on earth would private property and markets require growth of anything, beats me. Naturally, it is very nice when consumption is growing - societies tend to be happy-looking places in such moments. It is also not very nice, when consumption starts falling - there are a lot of unhappy people around in those cases, of course. Even a market economy cannot make people believe they are living better today than tomorrow if they have less. But, hell, it is a lot more efficient in providing for human welfare than whatever the alternatives known to humanity - except in extraordinary short-term circumstances, such as famine, war, pestilence, etc. Yes, even Churchill and Roosevelt got their ration books during WWII, in order to buy the price-controlled eggs. But, in the end, if you try to impose such emergency measures permanently, societies adapt: there emerge black markets, underground workshops, traders. You can try to kill them off (they shot an ancestor of mine for selling shirts and needles), but, in the end, you yield. In the late 1980s/early 1990s markets in Russia emerged at the time of economic collapse. Today what makes life bearable in North Korea are the illegal and semi-legal markets. It's not as if NK were growing - but the markets did. Shoot them, murder them, declare them scum: if there is scarcity, there will be traders and markets and (illegal, but nevertheless quite real) private property. That's as much of an empirical law as social science can get you.

5. Anyway, the world's economy isn't going to be growing forever. And the reason is obvious: every single estimate of the world's population dynamics is pointing to the population starting to drop within the next century. This is going to create a lot of problems we are all quite cognizant of: hard to sustain pensions and medical care for the elderly, when you do not have a supply of the younger folk entering the workforce. Mercifully, globally it won't happen in our lifetime, and locally it can be resolved through immigration. Then, of course, there are places like Japan that are already there. Japan hasn't much grown in a generation, and the population is already falling. When I was passing through recently, I didn't notice any price controls or socialized factories. Where should I have been looking?

6. I can go on and on. But the fact remains: the original statement was ridiculous, and not even remotely understood by its author, who himself had only a vague notion of what those words meant.

No, I just see your transparent attempt to be ignorant of the meaning of some basic words or the framing of Tweed's argument to be ridiculous.

You really want me to go into detail on why I consider the whole "argument" to be ridiculous? I don't like being nasty.

BTW, if DOMA is partially struck, but the full faith and credit is not made to apply here, what would prevent, say, a Massachussetts legislature to establish, that "marriage in Massachussetts shall be a union between two persons concluded without disrimination on the basis of  sexual orientation" or something like that. As long as Massachussetts is defining marriage to mean it must be opened to all couples, this would not seem to be much different from Alabama defining marriage to mean oit must be opened only to heterosexual couples. How long would it take from that till Alabama marriages are not recognized in New England?

Then you shouldn't be an economist.

Why? Do you honestly believe that being an economist requires using meaningless words?

Capitalism is more than a market economy. Its a form of market economy in which a class of capital owners control the means of production - or at least most of them.

I have no freaking clue what "capitalism" means. The term is entirely meaningless to me and has no descriptive value.

Two problems in a shrinking economy:

- deflation - basically messing up the whole system and leading to a negative growth spiral.

- lack of jobs giving fewer and fewer people access to the market leading to increased pressure for either government allocation of resources or a new distribution of the means of production.
 

Now, as a homework assignment: try figuring out what is the relationship between growth, deflation, and jobs.

Putin IS a fascist.

How so? One can be a right wing authoritarian without being a fascist.

What exactly do you find missing?

I applaud your inattention to ag, Tweed.  I have a solution for you - growth can be slightly mitigated by tremendous cataclysmic wars and to a lesser extend by plagues and other forms of 'die off'.  I admit we have not seen nearly enough of this solution yet, but perhaps more is coming.  I for one do hold out some hope for the 'zombie solution', but I suppose that's a bit of a fantasy given the source (B-movies).

Well, well... Your own humanitarian view of that part of the world that you personally not screwing at the moment has been well-known around here Though, of course, you assume that you won't be among the victims. And you got annoyed at me addressing you "Your Lordship" )

Why not? Can you imagine a capitalist system without growth? (if we are talking about a permanent condition).

What's the relationship between growth and "capitalism" (whatever the latter means)? Markets, surely, do not need growth to operate. Not having growth isn't fun, but, conditional on having no growth, I would still much prefer to live in a market economy, as compared with any alternative I am aware of.

It's not just about energy per se, but value, or "utility", let's say measured at a constant market price in an arbitrary currency. Why don't you agree with this view?

Value or utility? And how do you measure utility at a market price?

There are lots of ways economists do it. Look at people's behavior in choosing between options that have a currency value (observed or estimated), and then make inferences.

The point is that non-economists tend to think in terms of discrete, tangible things such as "the Earth" and "methane hydrate extraction", whereas economists tend to think in terms of numbers and equations. The economist's viewpoint is that he or she is thinking at a higher level because he or she is at once being more general and precise than someone talking about peak oil or the need to recycle.

I am an economist, and I have no clue of what you've just said.

It's not just about energy per se, but value, or "utility", let's say measured at a constant market price in an arbitrary currency. Why don't you agree with this view?

Value or utility? And how do you measure utility at a market price?

Nothing is infinite on this planet. Not even this planet will exist forever, for that matter. But economics does not deal with geological time horizons

In the sentence "capitalism needs growth in order to survive" I do not understand the words "capitalism", "needs", and "survive". We are, also, probably, not on the same page as far as the word "growth" is concerned. Care to elablorate?

something ideologically sensitive and the econ. professor suddenly loses half of his vocabulary.  fascinating tactic but I'm not about to get drawn into a pedantic dissection on your territory this early on.  go with your intuition and impression.

The problem is: you original claim makes absolutely no sense to me. So, define your terms.

Hitler he isn't, but Mussolini is a very apt comparison. And I didn't say Nazi - I said fascist.

Putin IS a fascist.

In the sentence "capitalism needs growth in order to survive" I do not understand the words "capitalism", "needs", and "survive". We are, also, probably, not on the same page as far as the word "growth" is concerned. Care to elablorate?

McCain won this district 55.7 to 43.3. A Dem could win here - but it would be anything but a comfortable Dem district. A decent Republican candidate should do well here.

Ah, I see. If it can be done by home production, it's ok. You only need to go through oficial stores if we are talking industrial production. Well, that was, more or less, how it was in the old Soviet Union. You could buy potatos in the market, or even some canned mushrooms from your neighbour, but, say, shirts - well, that's what they've done an ancestor of mine in for.

Not sure what any of that has to do with selling cars.  The auto manufacturers encourage a gigantic brick and mortar dealership network.  A manufacturer can't come in and just cut the legs out from underneath the dealership network.  The dealership needs to be compensated for the investment they made at the enticement of the manufacturer.

America is wasteful.  There are already plenty of abandoned eyesore dealerships dotting the landscape.  You want there to be even more?

If they can't sell cars, wastefulness is to keep them open. If their owners insist on keeping them open by bribing legislators, they should be shot.