On Economics
I read this and was inspired to write this in semi-response.
One thing I have found is that economics has a heartbeat by the decade and that the number of factors is very high.
For example: I used to take Ireland as an example of a European country that degregulated and subsequently out-preformed nearly everyone. I would show graphs, etc. to everyone I discussed politics with.
Then of course the crash happened. Things are not *simple* they are very, very complex and worse growth happens over decades and during that time population demographics change, technology changes, relative resource pricing changes.
Heck, something that keeps my brain fairly active is the importance of intelligence distribution. What if countries with a lower average iq but a higher average top %1 are better able to organize? Where does this work and where would this be a disadvantage?
What about economy diversification? The Canadian dollar has a roughly 0.1 correlation with the price of oil due to Alberta and NFLD, but we also have manufacturing, tech, media, and finance. Does this stabilize our dollar and allow further investment into any one of the hot sectors or does it needlessly put the out of favor group up against severe currency pressure?
What about subgroup ideology shifts? Does Obama being president enfranchise blacks, the highest crime/welfare subgroup. If he does and there is a 10% positive shift in “outlook” and a subsequent drop in crime and welfare burden 10 years from now how well can that be discovered?
Ultimately I’m a Libertarian because of ethics, not economic expediency. But people want answers and often times “it is really complicated” isn’t the appropriate answer. There are so many inter-dependencies and factors that simple statements like “Sweden does it and it is amazing there!” are worse than useless. They allow people to cheat intellectually, as I once did with Ireland.
I can think of nothing more complicated and intractable than economics. If we do live in a simulation, I suspect our simulators are split testing economic policy.
