Where has there ever been a genuinely free market?

Too true, too true.

Despite the fact that the relatively freer markets have seen greater stability, prosperity, and opportunity while relatively less free markets see greater fluctuations, privation, and social immobility, we continue to think that we can intelligently design our way into a system that is both unfree and prosperous. Or even just unfree and fair. The greater the economic freedom, the less that the have’s can manipulate the system to maintain their control.

Are Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne and Napoleon really the world’s greatest conquerors?

This is an interesting question. I’m pretty sure that Julius Caesar ought to be up there somewhere (he conquered Gaul and various other barbarian regions, but failed to conquer Britain). Genghis Khan and Alexander certainly deserve to be in the list, IMO. I don’t know enough about Charlemagne, and Napolean’s empire lasted only a short time, so his greatness is arguable.

Who would be your candidates? (IOW, whose DNA would be in your laboratory?)

LOL!

In some cases, in fact, the theories are based on assumptions that are known to be false. In any other field of science, this would be of more than a little concern, but not in economics.

Too true.

. . . To me, that’s a little like hearing that NASA uses Ptolemaic epicycles to calculate trajectories for interplanetary probes.

It’s worse than that, in fact. There is one version of the Ptolemaic epicycles system that is a coordinate transformation from a heliocentric solar system with elliptical orbits, and is therefore mathematically equivalent.

And finally, Sixth, any rational examination of the last 300 years will prove that free market economics makes the lives of people better from the lowest to the highest segments of populations.

Where has there ever been a genuinely free market?

If you take some shark DNA and bear DNA, stir them together with a spoon, and zap them with a laser, you’ll get a burned mess, not a Shark-Bear.

Aw, man!

That’s that project going in the bin, then.

The “meal in a pill” fantasy is just that. A fantasy.

Second of all, kudos to the artist for acchieving what tickled me the most about the strip – a super villian, in a mask/welding shield thing actually looking sheepish! That made me laugh more than the content of the strip, which I thought was pretty funny! Cheers for blending art, science and humor!

Probably for the best.

That said, I’ll concede that most economic forecasting is not scientific, any more than most of the climate debate is scientific. Many of those that actually do the economic research do it scientifically, but then their research gets twisted by people with political goals. The same is true for pure climate science. There is also the recursive factor where the science itself is made to achieve certain results in the first place. Fortunately the world provides us a great lab to test scientific principles.

How many countries with planned economies have fat poor people. How many countries with free market economics have fat poor people? How many countries where government protects private property suffer from famine? How many countries where the government does not or can not protect private property rights suffer from famine?

While we may not be able to predict economic storms, we can certainly predict what doesn’t work. The debacle of the Washington Consensus and its goals to plan economics shows that we don’t know what the sufficient conditions for free market development are, but we certainly know what does NOT work. We are studying it to get answers, scientifically, despite the political noise that gets in the way.

and if so why the Global Financial Crisis?

Oh, I don’t know, why global warming?

Economics as a science has been politicized since Adam Smith and Karl Marx came out with competing explanations. The more politicized the science, the less clear cut it becomes. Smith was more right than Marx, but that doesn’t matter because Marx became popular with college professors.

Are Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne and Napoleon really the world’s greatest conquerors?

Would they count as super-villians?

What about others such as the Roman Caesars & the British empire builders who had half the world under the British commonwealth? What about Attila the Hun, Rupert Murdoch and General Tojo / Emperor Hirohito?

Plus is it science or economics ruling the world at the end anyway?

I don’t think economics is a science – if it was wouldn’t it work a lot better and be a lot more predictable than it seems to be today? Are economists capable of making accurate predictions – and if so why the Global Financial Crisis?

The fact that Dole’s economic theory agrees with your politics does not make it a science.

does it agree ?

There are no reproducable results, it is all subjective, none of it is in anyway science.

Strong words. Can you can you back them up somehow ?

You believe that certain signs mean something will happen, and that certain actions will have certain effects, and you are undaunted by the repeated failures of the real world to conform to your belief, you just make excuse for why it didn’t.

Now, you definitely have to support such serious accusations with something more than your word.

I’m afraid so, and it involves weasels.

DNA ALWAYS combines alphabetically. So it’s a Bear-Shark, not a Shark-Bear. Everyone knows that!

(munches popcorn)

Actually, economics can’t be a true religion because there’s really no consistent dogma. Or hats. All power religions have wicked hats.

Related image: now we’re takin!
http://www.thelaughingstock.co.uk/acatalog/pator_hat.JPG

Don’t know much about economics but I do know someone who does:
krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

Bah ha ha ha! Archbishop Krugman? Are you serious?

The fact that Dole’s economic theory agrees with your politics does not make it a science. There are no reproducable results, it is all subjective, none of it is in anyway science. It is, in fact, religion. You believe that certain signs mean something will happen, and that certain actions will have certain effects, and you are undaunted by the repeated failures of the real world to conform to your belief, you just make excuse for why it didn’t. Science adjusts itself based on results, religion does not, Macroeconomics does not. Macroeconomics is religion, it is woo. Doesn’t matter if it is conservative or liberal, it is all woo.

For a specific case consider the Black-Scholes theorem, which assumes is that everyone can borrow unlimited amounts at the risk-free interest rate. Despite the fact that everyone acknowledges this is false, the theorem won the Nobel in economics, and is incorporated into the algorithms that price and trade options. To me, that’s a little like hearing that NASA uses Ptolemaic epicycles to calculate trajectories for interplanetary probes.

I think government should exist to protect me from others and not from myself. That doesn’t make me a libertarian, that makes me a liberal.

That makes you an libertarian hypocrite