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CAPITOL LETTERS (Ep. 12): The Truth per Thaler Spent (or the Return on Insightfulness)
That Economics is a science is a statement against which it is difficult to argue. Be that as it may, enquiring “what kind of science it is” (exact or social science) should be taken as a pertinent question in its own right. Economists, both those that have already made a name for themselves and those that are still learning the ropes needed to master the theoretical or applied approaches, are the ones expected to have addressed, in foro interno, such dilemmas. Notably, the profession is far from reaching a consensus among its members in such regard. However, investigating what sets economics apart that it finds itself in the position to judge the other sciences, actually, Science, is a track of inquiry that is rarely taken, let alone trod, yet one that could prove surprising if we consider all that it may reveal. The type of judgement we are alluding to refers to one’s capacity of logical reasoning, not that of bringing to a court of justice, i.e., of identifying culprits and casualties. Economic analysis is a way of judging/reasoning about things. More
The Hunger Games: Weaponizing Food
Since the beginning of time, food has been used as a weapon of war. Enemies have tried to starve each other to death. The Romans did it, and so did the Germans, the Americans, and Britain weaponized food against India and the Central Powers. Food has always been used as a weapon of choice in almost every conflict or war.An ugly contradiction is playing out in war-torn Ukraine, as thousands of Ukrainians are starving in cities besieged by Russian forces, even though Ukraine is a key supplier in the global food supply chain, responsible for significant food commodity export. More
CAPITOL LETTERS (Ep. 11): Across (Twelve) Land(s) and (Three) Sea(s)
Phobos, kerdos and doxa: fear, egotism and glory. These are the inner forces of human nature, according to Thucydides, the “grandfather” of political realism, if we are to concede paternity in modern times to H. Morgenthau. These forces animate (or do they animalize?) this world since the world began. Realists, as weighers and counters of power both between individuals and nations, look towards and “chart” this world through “balances of power”. They poke fun at idealists, who naively seek concord among men and states through institutionalized bargains and norms (pace Kant and W. Wilson), by claiming that institutions, otherwise upheld as triumphs of reason, are nothing more than secondary products of a primary balance of power. Physical nature is the stage for human nature’s growls and pantomimes: it does not determine, nor dictate, but amplifies or blots human impulses and inferences. Geographies may not hold complete explanations, but they do present complications, as Eastern Europe has learned to its sorrow. More
INFatuated, INFuriated, INFlexible?
What the international press and analysts from every corner of the world have speculated on for more than a year has happened. The White House has announced that the US is withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The decision is congruent with the US President's foreign policy preferences, but it could generate significant consequences because it of the possibility of disrupting an extremely fragile international nuclear balance. More
Material Consumption, a Key Problem for Sustainable Development in Romania
Romania is on the podium in the top 3 in terms of domestic material consumption between EU Member States and holds the first position in the category of non-metallic materials, which includes household garbage. The data were presented by Eurostat for the year 2021 and are calculated in tonnes per person, by resource category, which also includes biomass, metal ores and fossil-based materials. More
Future Tense in the Job Market
Lately, in the community of futurists and the subgroup of Economics scholars / freaks, a theory or, better yet, a slogan has emerged, in support of the idea of the acceleration of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution (IR 4.0), based on automation, interconnections between machines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) / Internet of Things (IoT). According to this saying, expressed in a similar form by Martin Boehm in 2017, “4 of 5 jobs of the year 2025 have not yet been created”, which can be translated as 80% of the future (types of) jobs in the next 6 years do not exist today. Therefore, the statement is qualitative before being quantitative. This brief essay breaks this idea down to see if it holds water. We do contest neither the transformation of economy towards automated production, nor the growing impact of AI in present and future jobs. What is indeed put under scrutiny is the pace of adoption, on a large scale, of these technologies. More
CAPITOL LETTERS (Ep. 10): Samuel F.B. Morse, the Janusian Creator
“What hath God wrought?”, the Biblical wonder in the face of divine creation, was spelled out by a creative man of science and of art, a man of faith, as well as of feud. Samuel F.B. Morse by his name, the founding father, in the electro-magnetic “field” of the Industrial Revolution, of the present-day USD 6 trillion global information and communications technology sector (ICT), aired these words, in the code bearing his name, in the first telegraph transmission on May 24, 1844. What at that time linked Baltimore to Washington, now connects an entire planet in a variety of ways, of which the Metaverse is the latest mutation. And whilst for many the Metaverse was a concept formerly confined to Sci-Fi which is now coming true, resembling some sort of “second life”, few know that the invention of the telegraph occurred during Morse’s… second life. Yet, it is not the kind of parallel existence that Meta is offering us, but a life that was the second in a chronological series of two lives, of which fine arts occupied the first 46 of his 81 years on Earth. In 1837, Morse surrendered, deeply disappointed, from the artistic front, only to enter immediately the “tech” battlefield. More
Some Thoughts on the Criteria of Nominal Economic Convergence in the EU
In connection with the nominal economic convergence criteria, five comments can be made: a) on their completeness; b) on their representativeness; c) on their relevance (meaning); d) on their redundancy (non-synergy); e) on their effectiveness. More
Give Us, God, Our Daily Experts (Part II)
I continue now with the other remaining two classes of incompetency (or, equally, of incompetents), which give themselves the high title of expert. In other places and moments, I have spoken about the conceptual distinction between the politician (expert of purpose) and the expert (politician of means). Therefore, I wait for an expert to pronounce his/her opinion about the means (ways, strategies, programs, and so on) able to objectify purposes that, themselves, are proposed by politicians. Unfortunately, (too) many politicians talk about means, as well as (too) many experts talk about purposes. Although, of course, it doesn’t exist such a categorical separation between politicians from experts – so there is not a net line between the two categories –, thus, it is a good thing that everyone be careful to talk about its „reserved” field. More
State Role vs. State Size
In modern society, the state remains the central element of political power and an essential factor in the sustainable development of a country. Together with its institutions, the state responds to emerging changes in society by multiplying its functions to ensure economic growth and to address a large part of the social needs it feels the need to manage. More
From Apollo to Artemis and Beyond
I consider human curiosity and quest for knowledge to be the main element that propels space exploration. We want to know what lies beyond the limits of our planet, beyond the limits of our solar system, beyond the limits of our galaxy, and to discover the mysteries of the Universe. We want to discover worlds similar to ours, and to understand where we come from and where we are going to, what cosmic events and what dangers await us in the near, distant and very distant future. Where can we start, besides just the observation of the sky? From the closest celestial bodies to our Earth, and the closest one is the Moon. More
The Return of Microeconomics
The recent launch of the English version of the seminal study “Some Microeconomic Landmarks of the Transition Process in Romania” by Prof. Cezar Mereuță is an important step in the process of exposing the notable work of Romanian scholars to their peers abroad.The initial Romanian edition appeared in 2015 and crowned 17 years of research into the structure of 1,009 markets between 1995 and 2012. His work is not only a peerless assessment of the developmental history of the Romanian economy post-transition, but a valuable work of microeconomics in its own right. More
