#mostly posting because all my katie pearlhead posts in one place

[cicaklah]

I posted 1,297 times in 2022

That's 37 more posts than 2021!

427 posts created (33%)

870 posts reblogged (67%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@stickthisbig

@bourbonpowered

@sixohsixoheightfourtwo

@cicaklah

@llywela13

I tagged 1,226 of my posts in 2022

Only 5% of my posts had no tags

#hitman - 208 posts

#oxventure - 126 posts

#meme me - 121 posts

#oxventure in the dark - 68 posts

#fic writing problems - 60 posts

#fic meme - 40 posts

#mergo - 39 posts

#cicak does an art - 26 posts

#star trek - 25 posts

#needle felting - 24 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#because for all she says she loves me and respects me and is proud of me she also loves being horrible to me so she can feel better

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Dob, do you have any fatal allergies? As your fiance, I think I should know. Just in case.

Just your friendly neighborhood queen of thieves

See the full post

63 notes - Posted May 26, 2022

#4

Being an economist on main again, soz...

So my last post got reblogged by people but I wanted, in true economist fashion, to really, truly, highlight why the current UK bullshit is so upsetting as a very normie, mainstream, working economist.

Economics is broadly split into two disciplines, microeconomics, which is basically the way the economy and individuals interact, and macroeconomics, which is how the economy as a whole-ass beast works. The main problem between these two disciplines is that a lot of rules of micro don't 'hold' when you get to the macro level, and vice versa. You might remember how economists always say that treating debt at country level the way we think about individual credit card or mortgage debt is wrong, that is a prime example of how micro and macro rules don't hold. Things, generally, are so much more complicated at macro level.

Because of this, most economists specialise in one or the other. I am a microeconomist, specifically a health economist, and while there is some macro stuff, generally we treat health spending as a micro level problem, i.e. we're fairly sure that if we make decisions at an individual level, the macro will look after itself (the pennies will look after the pounds).

(Now, this is a simplification because you can rightly say, cicak, my friend, the NHS is falling apart, to which I will say: you is right, but it is because of 'externalities' rather than the conceptual decision making process inherent to microeconomics, to wit: over a decade of deliberate underfunding, a global pandemic, and Brexit have all led to NHS problems. The solution to all of these problems can be understood in micro terms: more money, applied where it is most needed, as part of a plan, with measurable goals and targets. Ultimately: politics.)

Anyway, tangents aside, microeconomics is pretty ideologically stable. Most mainstream economics is based around social welfare theory, which is that people do things for reasons that bring them the most benefit, and they broadly, mostly, in aggregate, do that to an acceptable level of efficiency. If you would like to argue about this: please proceed to your nearest economics masters course, you'll fit right in.

The main difference between the schools of macro is: do individual changes make differences at the macro level? Or do only governments really make a difference at macro?

This used to be a BIG ARGUMENT back in the 20th century, mostly around what should be done with the Great Depression in 1929. Basically, should you just let the economy burn to the ground, and see what comes out of it? Or should governments stop the economy from collapsing? The Austrian school thought burn it down, Keynes thought: government. Keynes, broadly, won. There was a 2nd world war, and Keynesianism was refined. Then, it went out of fashion. Then it came back into fashion. A lot of this depends on the concept of 'full employment', the 1980s, economic stability, boom and bust, but these days, most macro policy is described as Neo-Keynesian and is considered broadly settled on government finding a balance between price, inflation, employment, growth and stability. This is done through monetary policy and fiscal policy, stuff government does.

But then you've got your Austrians, your Hayekians, your Mises. They think that government should butt out of the market, and that individuals are far more important. Individuals, especially rich individuals, should be allowed to do what they want with their money, and everything will be better if government just stops taking their money and lets the free market solve it. This is why the first thing Truss & friends did was cut the top rate of tax. Less money for government (bad with money) but more money for the people that they believe are already good with money, because they have a lot of it, see?

Modern Austrians believe that individuals are the only thing that matter at macro level. There are no groups of people, only individuals. Credit is bad and the real cause of business failure. Stability can be gained by pegging currencies to gold reserves. Oh and as we can't model all 67 million people in the UK, theres no point even trying. It'd just be chaos. Even model nerds say 'all models are wrong'. So no point. Just do it and be a legend. It'll all work out in the end. Just trust us. OBR? Have a beer. The numbers don't real.

Instead, everyone fucking PANICKED. Because as I said, 99% of economists are in the business of predicting the future. The future suddenly got unpredictable. No one saw the top rate of tax being cut coming. There's no economic justification for it, no 'dont worry, it'll be funded by XYZ'. Just Austrian bullshit of 'here comes freedom lads.' No one is talking to each other. A man credited with keeping all the fiscal, monetary and political systems moving has been fired because it turns out the chancellor didn't like that he worked from South America. The Bank of England are furious. The markets are in peril, but Kwarteng's bezzie mates at his cocktail party bet that the pound would crash, and are rolling in it. Everyone loves a run on the pound, it seems.

So yeah there's some more of why the uks economy kind of exploded this week.

88 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

#3

See the full post

95 notes - Posted September 5, 2022

#2

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118 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I love a Tory leadership contest, it's such a carnival of dickheads who absolutely believe in themselves being exposed to the oxygen of press attention for the first time, and they mostly act like those deep sea creatures that explode when brought to the surface.

409 notes - Posted July 7, 2022

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