Unemployment Rates in the States Where the Governors Reject Federal Unemployment Assistance

We noted the silly argument made by Louisiana’s governor as to why he wants to turn down the $98 million in federal unemployment assistance – which amounts to less than 2% of the total stimulus going to his states. CNN reports that Jindal has company:

Though they support some federal action to help their states recover from the recession, several Republican governors said Sunday they plan to turn down a portion of what's offered in the stimulus bill that President Obama signed last week. "If we were to take the unemployment reform package that they have, it would cause us to raise taxes on employment when the money runs out -- and the money will run out in a couple of years," Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. The Republican governors of Idaho, Alaska, Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana have expressed similar concerns.

I guess Barbour got the same talking points that were given to Jindal. Steve Benen reports on the nonsense coming from the governor of South Carolina:

As for Sanford's notion of a "fundamental misdiagnosis," what does the South Carolinian believe is the wisest course of action? "When times go south you cut spending," Sanford recently explained. "That's what families do, that's what businesses do, and I don't think the government should be exempt from that process." It is Neo-Hooverism in its most obvious form.

As these governors decide that the unemployed of their states are less important than a little political pandering to the rightwing, maybe we should check with this source as to how much the unemployment rate has increased from December 2007 to December 2008:

Alaska: 6.5% to 7.5%

Idaho: 2.7% to 6.4%

Louisiana: 4.0% to 5.3%

Mississippi: 6.3% to 8.0%

South Carolina: 6.2% to 9.5%

Texas: 4.2% to 6.0%

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research.

Pollack, Andrew. 2009. "Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research." New York Times (19 February).
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/business/20crop.html?ref=business

"Biotechnology companies are keeping university scientists from fully researching the effectiveness and environmental impact of the industry’s genetically modified crops, according to an unusual complaint issued by a group of those scientists. “No truly independent research can be legally conducted on many critical questions,” the scientists wrote in a statement submitted to the Environmental Protection Agency. The E.P.A. is seeking public comments for scientific meetings it will hold next week on biotech crops."



"The researchers, 26 corn-insect specialists, withheld their names because they feared being cut off from research by the companies. But several of them agreed in interviews to have their names used. The problem, the scientists say, is that farmers and other buyers of genetically engineered seeds have to sign an agreement meant to ensure that growers honor company patent rights and environmental regulations. But the agreements also prohibit growing the crops for research purposes. So while university scientists can freely buy pesticides or conventional seeds for their research, they cannot do that with genetically engineered seeds. Instead, they must seek permission from the seed companies. And sometimes that permission is denied or the company insists on reviewing any findings before they can be published, they say. Such agreements have long been a problem, the scientists said, but they are going public now because frustration has been building. “If a company can control the research that appears in the public domain, they can reduce the potential negatives that can come out of any research,” said Ken Ostlie, an entomologist at the University of Minnesota, who was one of the scientists who had signed the statement."

"The companies “have the potential to launder the data, the information that is submitted to E.P.A.,” said Elson J. Shields, a professor of entomology at Cornell."

"The growers’ agreement from Syngenta not only prohibits research in general but specifically says a seed buyer cannot compare Syngenta’s product with any rival crop. Dr. Ostlie, at the University of Minnesota, said he had permission from three companies in 2007 to compare how well their insect-resistant corn varieties fared against the rootworms found in his state. But in 2008, Syngenta, one of the three companies, withdrew its permission and the study had to stop. “The company just decided it was not in its best interest to let it continue,” Dr. Ostlie said."

"Mark A. Boetel, associate professor of entomology at North Dakota State University, said that before genetically engineered sugar beet seeds were sold to farmers for the first time last year, he wanted to test how the crop would react to an insecticide treatment. But the university could not come to an agreement with the companies responsible, Monsanto and Syngenta, over publishing and intellectual property rights. Chris DiFonzo, an entomologist at Michigan State University, said that when she conducted surveys of insects, she avoided fields with transgenic crops because her presence would put the farmer in violation of the grower’s agreement."

"Dr. Shields of Cornell said financing for agricultural research had gradually shifted from the public sector to the private sector. That makes many scientists at universities dependent on financing or technical cooperation from the big seed companies. “People are afraid of being blacklisted,” he said. “If your sole job is to work on corn insects and you need the latest corn varieties and the companies decide not to give it to you, you can’t do your job".”

Gov. Jindal Rejects $98 Million in Unemployment Assistance – Senator Landrieu Must Just Be Smarter than the Governor

Jan Moller has a very insightful story with respect to what the headline notes as Jindal rejects $98 million in stimulus spending:

Saying that it could lead to a tax increase on state businesses, Gov. Bobby Jindal announced Friday that the state plans to reject as much as $98 million in federal unemployment assistance in the economic stimulus package.

Rather that go off on what at first glance appears to be a knne-jerk GOP preference for business owners over the average working class family down on their luck, let’s pull what might appear to be Jindal’s reasons for this stance:

Jindal, who has emerged as a leading Republican critic of the $787 billion spending and tax-cut bill signed into law this week by President Barack Obama, said the state would accept federal dollars for transportation projects and would not quarrel with a $25-per-week increase in unemployment benefits. Both of those items are financed entirely with federal dollars and require the state only to accept the money. The part that Jindal rejected would require permanent changes in state law that the governor said makes it unacceptable. "You're talking about temporary federal spending triggering a permanent change in state law," Jindal said ... At issue are two pots of federal money that states can access only if they agree to change their laws to make it easier for unemployed workers to qualify for benefits. To access the first pot of money, worth $32.8 million over 27 months, Louisiana would have to offer benefits to workers who have held jobs for as little as three months before becoming unemployed. Workers now have to hold a job for at least a year before they are eligible to collect unemployment. The Louisiana Workforce Commission, which administers the state's unemployment insurance system, estimates that an additional 4,000 former workers would become eligible for benefits under that change. A second pot of money, valued at $65.6 million, would be available to Louisiana only if it agreed to other, larger expansions of benefits. For example, the state could extend benefits to part-time workers or change the law so that people could collect unemployment if they voluntarily left their job for "compelling" family reasons. As the Jindal administration interprets the law, Louisiana would be required to keep providing the expanded benefits even after the federal stimulus dollars run out at the end of 2010. That, in turn, would lead to higher costs on businesses, whose taxes finance the state's unemployment compensation fund. According to the Workforce Commission, the expanded benefits would cost Louisiana companies $12 million a year after the federal money ends. The businesses, in turn, would pass those costs on to their workers. “I don't think it's good policy to take temporary federal dollars to create a permanent state spending obligation,” Jindal said.

Senator Landrieu has another view:

But U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., disputed the governor's interpretation and said the new unemployment benefits are designed to be temporary. "This bill is an emergency measure designed to provide extra help during these extraordinarily tough times, " Landrieu said. "To characterize this provision as a 'tax increase on Louisiana businesses' is inaccurate." … A senior aide to Landrieu agreed that the state would have to change the law to take advantage of the windfall but said the change would not have to be permanent. Instead, the Legislature could write the new law with a "sunset provision" so it expires when the federal stimulus dollars run out.

Republicans should understand sunset provisions – it’s how they claimed that the 2001 tax cuts would not permanently drive up the deficit. The governor of Louisiana is turning down almost $100 million in federal unemployment assistance becomes he cannot think out of the box? Isn’t this complete incompetence grounds for his removal from public office?

The perversion of humanitarian activities

The United States has a long history of using humanitarian ventures as a cover for promoting its own self-interest. Here is an example I found from the early 20th century regarding Herbert Hoover's relief work following World War I.

Andelman, David A. 2008. A Shattered Peace: Versailles 1919 and the Price We Pay Today (New York: J. Wiley).

31: "Colonel Edward House recognized that the peace was likely to be won by the power that had the best understanding of the situation on the ground of each of the territories that the delegates were about to carve up and remodel. So in mid-November House and Van Deman hit on an original approach to the rapid establishment of an effective spy network throughout Europe. Van Deman described it in his own words: "It will be remembered at the time Herbert Hoover had been given charge of providing food and relief for certain devastated sections of Europe. We desired to send with Mr. Hoover's workers going into those areas certain intelligence agents who were familiar with the country, but to this Mr. Hoover violently objected."



31: "It was a brilliant system of the utmost simplicity. Herbert Hoover, who would become the 31st president of the United States, then headed network of private relief workers in the defeated nations. They could move with total freedom and without a scintilla of suspicion among all the subject people of Europe. Indeed, as the dispensers of life-giving food and water they would be welcomed as saviors. The only remaining problem was to persuade Hoover himself. House insisted as his allies you Gibson, a gifted young American diplomat. While serving as principal aide to Hoover and his relief efforts in Belgium during the war, and Gibson also managed to distinguish himself in gathering battlefield intelligence by wriggling through German lines. House now promised Gibson a cushy post as coordinator of the intelligence effort at the U. S. Legation in Vienna if he would persuade Hoover to go along with the plan."

32: "Gibson was surpassingly discreet, but he and House prevailed. In a face-to-face showdown in Paris was Col. House, Hoover, who never really managed to overcome his roots as a simple mining engineer from Iowa was forced to give in. The coordinator of the largest international relief effort ever mounted was persuaded to the use of his pan-European organization as a cover for the first network of spies the United States ever fielded in a coordinated fashion across the continent."

California Budget Follies

California is doing whatever it can to mismanage its way to disaster. Here is a graphic showing how the California State University system keeps piling on administrators, while expecting the staff and faculty to take on more responsibilities. In so far as teaching is concerned, the model is becoming more like No Child Left Behind -- more and more silly ways to generate numbers that have nothing to do with education.

With all the superficial complaints about education, virtually nobody in authority takes issue with the managerial bloat. Anyway, enjoy the graphic.
http://www.calfac.org/competingpriorities.html

Geographers Goof Up on Bin Laden Whereabouts

Juan Cole today (http://www.juancole.com) reports on the controversy over a recent paper by Gillespie et al, some geographers, in the MIT International Review, which has also gotten a lot of media attention. By doing analysis from space they claim that Osama bin Laden is probably hiding in the largest city in frontier zone of Pakistan near the Afghan border, Parachinar, and even identify three building complexes in it as likely locations for him to be. The obvious implication is for the US military to bomb the heck out of those buildings, or maybe at least to drop some Special Forces or whomever into there to try and capture him.

Cole reprints a letter from a former resident of the area to the MIT International Review, Murtaza Haidar, a professor at Ryerson University. Haidar points out a reason why Gillespie and crew are almost certainly wrong, and why it would be a major mistake for anybody to attack the place. While this zone is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim, as is bin Laden and his closest followers, the city of Parachinar is inhabited overwhelmingly by Shi'i Muslims, with the city under siege and attack by their neighbors. Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the area have been responsible for the deaths of many Shi'a, so that there is simply no way that anyone from either group would be remotely welcome in Parachinar, most especially bin Laden himself. But , this is not the first time we have seen American "experts" calling for military action on the basis of ideas from outer space that are not at all in touch with the facts on the ground.

Raymond J. Keating is Silly

by the Sandwichman

Raymond J. Keating is chief economist for the Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council. Karen Kerrigan is President and C.E.O. of the Council and is chairperson of the Coalition to End Union Violence, a project of the Small Business Survival Committee (of which she is chairman and founder). These folks and organizations share an office suite on L Steet in D.C. with Grover Norquist and his American's for Tax Reform. Get the picture? Cogs in the vast right-wing Wurlitzer.

Keating also happens to have the distinction of being the only economist the Sandwichman knows of who has published a commentary on Dean Baker's shorter work-time proposal.

These are serious and rather grim economic times.

After all, the current recession is over a year old, and real GDP growth in the fourth quarter of last year registered a dire -3.8 percent. And nobody sounds cheery about 2009.

Belying such seriousness, however, there are a lot of silly ideas being kicked around when it comes to economic policy.

Consider the suggestion made by Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in a commentary piece in the Jan. 28 New York Daily News.

Baker argued that President Barack Obama and Congress should be "creating incentives for companies to reduce the workweek and work year for many Americans." He claims that this would "provide a quick boost to the economy and jobs - and lasting gains in reduced unemployment."

Hmmm, working and producing less somehow translates into higher economic growth. Lower productivity then must be a plus for the economy. Baker claims that with certain tax incentives, workers could get paid the same for less work, more workers would have to be hired, and apparently all this would be just ducky for business.

Does any of this make sense? Of course not. Lost productivity, higher business costs and reduced economic growth would result if this were implemented.

It may be germane to point out that Keating is one of those climate change denial guys and that Kerrigan's outfits are funded by the likes of Exxon and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco. According to her bio on Inc., "A seasoned player in the conservative movement, Kerrigan made a name for herself by playing a key role in derailing the Clintons' health care plan." Smoking good. Health care bad. Tax cuts good. Unions bad.

But the Sandwichman only brings up the matter of Raymond J. Keating's silliness to underscore the fecklessness of prominent liberal economists whose silence on Baker's proposal for shorter working time amounts to a tacit endorsement of the Keating/Kerrigan/Norquist growth-at-any-cost paradigm.

Raymond J. Keating is silly. The silent liberals are feckless.

The Lucas Critique

I see the eminent Nobelist has explained to all of us why the Stimulus hasn't a chance in Hell. This is a man who told Arjo Klamer (in Conversations With Macroeconomists) that macroeconomics, before he bestrid (?) it, Colossus-like, was a complete waste of time, since it was devoted to explaining a fiction invented by Keynes. The "fiction?" Why, Involuntary Unemployment, of course! So let's pay careful attention to what he has to say about fixing things. What is there to fix, after all. Ain't broke!

Bard College has fired Joel Kovel

I am biased since I admire Joel. Lou Proyect has done an excellent job in putting the case into context.

http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/02/19/bard-college-terminates-joel-kovel/

Great Moments in Labor Relations

In a Letter from the Gatling Gun Company to B&O Railroad in 1877:

"... we have the honor to suggest that you strengthen yourselves now against such emergencies in the future, by providing yourselves with Gatling guns."

Full letter here:

http://groups.google.com/group/maryland-labor-history?pli=1

5,000 Characters

by the Sandwichman

The White House Task Force on Middle Class Working Families has increased their comment submission length from 500 to 5000 characters. The Sandwichman submitted the following 4,994 character summary, along with a link to a longer version:

The key to addressing the issues of work and family balance, labor standards, equitable distribution of the fruits of economic progress and protection of the environment lies in regulating and limiting the hours of work. In the absence of countervailing union pressure or government policy, there is a structural bias that leads to the prevalence of socially and environmentally harmful long hours of work. This summary outlines the case for work time reduction and draws attention to a promising policy innovation to redress the current imbalance. A full, hyperlinked version of this submission is available [at the end of this post].

American families have changed substantially since the 1960s but many policies aimed at assuring income security have remained unchanged since the New Deal of the 1930s. Today, two-thirds of all families with children are either single-parent or dual-earner families. Between 1979 and 2000, the hours worked per year by married couples with children increased by 16 percent, or nearly 500 hours. Bernstein and Kornbluh noted that without that increase in hours worked, the incomes of middle- and lower-income families would have stagnated or declined. That conclusion, however, overlooks the possibility that the increased supply of hours may itself have contributed, through a feedback effect, to wage stagnation.

Most work-family advocates in the U.S. focus on the need for family-friendly policies such as child-care, paid family leave and flexible scheduling that mitigate the effects of a seemingly immutable working time regime. "The challenge," though, Kornbluh has noted, "is to frame work-life balance as a broader political economy issue."

Historically, work-life balance was framed as a broader political economy issue in labor agitation for shorter working time. For nearly a century, from the 1860s to the 1950s, American labor unions also put forward the reduction of working time as their focal strategy for combating unemployment. After the Second World War, though, the unions' enthusiasm for shorter hours waned. Instead, the AFL-CIO primarily focused its efforts on urging government spending to foster economic growth and only sought shorter hours as a "last resort."

What changed between the 1930s and the 1960s was the acceptance of the idea that government spending could stimulate economic growth. Although popularly referred to as "Keynesianism," Keynes himself did not accept the idea that boundless expansion of production and consumption was worthwhile for its own sake. Instead, he specified working less as the "ultimate cure" for unemployment. The imperative for growth was a notion added by later economists.

Continued economic growth, fostered by government fiscal and monetary strategies, has led to an increase in effective demand for what Hirsch called positional goods. Competition for these socially or physically scarce or congested goods draws resources away from the output of final consumption goods and also exacts a personal cost in terms of time pressure. Individuals are compelled to spend more time in market activities and thus have less time to spend in non-commercial pursuits such as production for home consumption, leisure and sociability. "This has helped to upset a long-held expectation about the potential fruits of economic growth – namely, that they will be taken increasingly in the form of relief from material pursuits."

Rosnick and Weisbrot estimated that if European countries adopted the long working hours prevailing in the U.S., they would consume 25 percent more energy. Conversely, if the U.S. adopted working times closer to the European average, it would consume 20 percent less energy. Assuming that the intensity of greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP continues to decline at a rate consistent with the historical trend, economic growth averaging 2.5 percent annually would increase emissions by around 75 percent over the next 30 years. Meanwhile, poverty and unemployment will creep steadily upward. The alternative to continual economic growth and a resulting environmental and/or social catastrophe is to reduce the average hours of work for the bulk of the working population and increase employment opportunities for the unemployed and the underemployed.

Dean Baker has proposed government subsidies for shorter hours and vacation pay as part of the economic stimulus plan.

The government could give employers an incentive to provide paid time off now by giving tax breaks to cover all or most of the paid time off…

This is a neat form of stimulus because it directly gives employers an incentive to hire more workers, as can be easily shown…

If employers of 50 million workers took up the deal, then this 6 percent would translate into 3 million jobs…

There would undoubtedly be technical challenges to implementing a scheme such as that outlined by Baker. But there are challenges to implementing any stimulus package or policy reform.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Economics environment working families

Does Eric Cantor Heart the Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill?

Josh Marshall says he is a big Winston Churchill fan but doubts that Republican House Whip Eric Cantor knows much about Mr. Churchill’s political career. Josh makes this claim after reading this:

But Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill's role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party. He calls the stimulus bill "a stinker."

Should we remind both of them about a piece Lord Keynes wrote in 1925 entitled The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill? Churchill as Chancellor of the Exchequer had the British pound return to the gold standard after the First World War at too what turned out to be too high of a value. Keynes correctly predicted adverse economic consequences. British macroeconomic policy during this period also was the kind of macroeconomic mix the U.S. saw in the early Reagan years – tight money combined with tax cuts. The prices of British exports such as coal and textiles became uncompetitive on world markets leading to deflation and unemployment. As Keynes predicted, this strong pound policy also caused a trade deficit. The Reagan macroeconomic mix also created a fall in net exports, which contributed to the 1982 recession.

Churchill later recognized that the 1925 return to the gold standard was a mistake. One would think that U.S. Republicans would recognize that had we chose to repeat Herbert Hoover’s policies, we would be making an even greater economic mistake. But then Eric Cantor hearts Churchill’s leadership during this period. Go figure.

Happy Birthday, Dear Leader!

Yesterday was the 67th birthday of Kim Il Jong, the "Dear Leader" of the Democratic Peoples' Republic of (North) Korea.

In a column in today's Washington Post, the knowledgeable Selig Harrison reports on a trip he took about a month ago to Pyongyang, where met with top leaders and discussed possible options for deals on nuclear weapons. Apparently Kim did have a stroke last August, and while still participating a bit in decisions, is no longer running the government in any detail. The person on top effectivel now is his brother-in-law, Chang Soon Teak. Furthermore, the hardline National Defense Commission is on top, and Harrison was not allowed to meet with any of the "pragmatists" he has met in the past who favor a friendlier deal with the US and the rest of the world. Upshot is that they will not negotiate regarding the plutonium produced during the Bush years that is now "weaponized." They might negotiate on not producing any more, but there is a much harder line now in place there, unfortunately.

China on the Buy American Provisions

AP reports on an editorial from the Xinhua News Agency:

Measures in a $789 billion U.S. stimulus package that favor American goods are a "poison" that will hurt efforts solve the financial crisis, an editorial by China's official news agency said. Provisions in the U.S. stimulus bill approved Friday favoring American steel, iron and manufactured goods for government projects are protectionist measures that could trigger trade disputes, said the editorial issued late Saturday by the Xinhua News Agency. "History and economics have told us, facing a global financial crisis, trade protectionism is not a solution, but a poison to the solution," the editorial said. U.S. labor groups that pushed hard for inclusion of the measures have argued that their main purpose is to ensure that U.S. Treasury dollars are used to the fullest extent to support domestic job creation. China has promised to avoid "Buy China" protectionist measures in its own multibillion-dollar stimulus effort, and appealed to other governments to support free trade.

I suspect that Robert Scott will find this claim that China is an advocate of free trade hard to shallow:

The growth of U.S. trade with China since China entered the World Trade Organization in 2001 has had a devastating effect on U.S. workers and the domestic economy ... A major cause of the rapidly growing U.S. trade deficit with China is currency manipulation. China has tightly pegged its currency to the dollar at a rate that encourages a large bilateral surplus with the United States. Maintaining this peg required the purchase of about $460 billion in U.S. treasury bills and other securities in 2007 alone. This intervention makes the yuan artificially cheap and provides an effective subsidy on Chinese exports. The best estimates place this effective subsidy at roughly 30%, even after recent appreciation in the yuan (Cline and Williamson 2008).

While Greg Mankiw wants to pretend that “China favors free trade, even if U.S. doesn’t”, one has to wonder if he also endorses the Chinese government’s policy of maintaining an undervalued yuan.

Update: Just in case someone reminds us that the exchange rate used to be 8.28 yuan per dollar and is now only 6.83 yuan per dollar, our graph shows this but it also shows that after this 17.5 percent exchange rate change, the exchange rate has not appreciably changed since July 2008. Just after the Presidential election, Bloomberg reported:

Barack Obama's calls for changes in China's yuan policy may put the president-elect on a collision course with the U.S.'s second-largest trade partner, which is holding the currency stable to support its export-led economy. Obama said China must stop manipulating the currency in a letter to the National Council of Textile Organizations released on Oct. 24. The People's Bank of China has kept the yuan almost unchanged against the dollar since mid-July as it shifts focus from countering inflation to sustaining growth amid a global credit crisis. The Foreign Ministry said last week the U.S. shouldn't blame its trade deficit on exchange rates.

It would seem that government officials in both nations view the exchange rate as part of the overall trade policy stance.

Reading Hicks (so Brad DeLong won't have to)

by the Sandwichman

In his diatribe against David Harvey, Brad DeLong invoked the authority of John R. Hicks more than once. "He (Harvey) doesn't understand Keynes, probably never read Hicks..."

And most tellingly,

And it is at this point that we draw on neoclassical economics to save us--specifically, John Hicks (1937), "Mr. Keynes and the Classics," the fons et origo of the neoclassical synthesis. Hicks's IS curve gives us a menu of combinations of levels of production and interest rates at which private investment spending and public deficit spending are financed out of the flow of savings.

Presenting the J.R. Hicks of "Mr. Keynes and the Classics" and his IS curve as the ultimate authority on Keynes is disingenuous. In the 1970s, Hicks himself repudiated his earlier formulation. But meanwhile its adoption by the US proponents of the "Keynesian neo-classical synthesis" could best be understood as an effort to inoculate economics against the more radical implications of Keynes's theory. A footnote from an essay by Luigi Pasinetti elaborates:

A simplified didactical tool, a mere device of exposition, had become so widespread as to become misleading -- too restrictive a tool for the purpose of accurately conveying Keynes's complex original message. Hicks kept on re-thinking his theory and slowly moving away from his original IS/LM formulation. In the late 1960s, early 1970s, he courageously took a break-away step. He strongly criticised, and actually, explicitly repudiated his successful little analytical toy. To stress his break-away, he went as far as declaring openly that he had ceased to be a neoclassical economist (in his words: "J.R. Hicks, [is] a 'neoclassical' economist now deceased..."). And in order to underline his change of mind, he even ceased to sign his articles by the name of J.R. Hicks and began to sign them by the name of John Hicks (in his words: "Clearly I need to change my name... John Hicks [is] a non-neoclassic who is quite disrespectful towards his 'uncle' [J.R.].

Of course, the story is more complex than that, even, and for Pasinetti's full take on Hick's Conversion there is no substitute for reading the article, even if for no other reason than to relish Joan Robinson's acerbic remark that:

John Hicks noticed the difference between the future and the past and became dissatisfied with the IS/LM but (presumably to save face for his predecessor, J.R.) he argued that Keynes's analysis was only half in time and half in equilibrium.

So much for "knowing more about Keynesian economics than Joan Robinson". DeLong thus cited as definitive a "little analytical toy" that the toy-maker himself repudiated and cherry picked quotes from a Joan Robinson who elsewhere disparaged the very toy that DeLong upheld as definitive. Sheesh.

I don't want to belabor 'uncle' J.R.'s culpability for "little analytical toys" and "simplifying assumptions" that made the neo-classical economist's work more excitingly elegant, remunerative and less relevant to the real world. But I do want to mention Hicks's assumption about the hours of work that has displaced an important argument from neo-classical economics that, if widely known, would decisively demonstrate the futility of the tautologies contemporary neo-classicals amuse themselves with -- Sydney Chapman's theory of the hours of labor. Think of it as the labor version of the Cambridge Capital Controversy.

As Chris Nyland wrote some twenty years ago, Chapman's theory essentially confirmed Marx's regarding the extensive and intensive dimensions of the hours of work. Sadly, with few exceptions, Marxists appear no more eager than neo-classicals to examine this theoretical convergence.