Kenneth Rogoff - A Dismal Economist

Posted: 10/19/2014  Updated: 6/25/2016

Update Of 6/25/2016

Just read his Britain’s Democratic Failure in response to the historic popular vote of the British people to exit the European Union. Kenneth Rogoff did it again, see below. Very revealing how a leading economists actually thinks!

I would now add, Kenneth Rogoff is not only a dismal economist, but a socialist and authoritarian economist. Beware!

It also shows that the economist is basically clueless about British history of individual and entrepreneurial freedom.

Quotes and comments about the above, new paper (Emphasis added):

1. “The real lunacy of the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union was not that British leaders dared to ask their populace to weigh the benefits of membership against the immigration pressures it presents.” (This is the first, opening sentence of his article)
   [What a lunatic argument by this economist! The British people had several months to discuss the pros and cons. Obviously, Kenneth Rogoff does not trust We the People to make decisions he does not like.]
2. “... it is Russian roulette for republics ...”
   [Kenneth Rogoff’s arguments are getting more and more desperate and lunatic!]
3. “A decision of enormous consequence … has been made without any appropriate checks and balances.”
   [Kenneth Rogoff appears to know something about the U.S. Constitution! Good that Kenneth Rogoff had no say in what the “appropriate” checks and balances should have been.]
4. “Did the UK’s population really know what they were voting on? Absolutely not.”
   [As long as the economist Kenneth Rogoff understands what the citizens were voting on!]
5. “But what, exactly, is a fair, democratic process for making irreversible, nation-defining decisions? Is it really enough to get 52% to vote for breakup on a rainy day?”
   [Rogoff’s desperation continues! Irreversible, that is so laughable! As a student of Rogoff, I would now ask for my money back.]
6. “In terms of durability and conviction of preferences, most societies place greater hurdles in the way of a couple seeking a divorce than Prime Minister David Cameron’s government did on the decision to leave the EU.”
   [Is this man really a professor at an elite university (Harvard University) in the U.S. to make such foolish comparisons?]
7. “Modern democracies have evolved systems of checks and balances to protect the interests of minorities and to avoid making uninformed decisions with catastrophic consequences.”
   [Without comment!]
8. “A country should not be making fundamental, irreversible changes based on a razor-thin minority that might prevail only during a brief window of emotion.”
   [Whether 1 million votes out of about 34 million total votes at 72% participation is “razor-thin” is arguable. Rogoff the rationalist vs. the emotional citizens.]
9. “There is no universal figure like 60% [for a supermajority], but the general principle is that, at a bare minimum, the majority ought to be demonstrably stable.”
   [Rogoff is arguing here for a quorum of required votes and perhaps for minimum turnout of votes for popular votes on fundamental decisions. Nice try! However, had these rules in place before the referendum, it is quite possible that the result would have been the same.]

Trigger

Just read economic professor Kenneth Rogoff’s piece on project syndicate “Rethinking the Growth Imperative”. The only good thing, I have to say about his article is that it is short, less than four pages and it is not written in economic lingo.

Project Syndicate, I said this here before, has become very annoying. You have to register to see an article.

This is another blog post in a series of blog posts about incompetent, contemporary economists. We have to thank these many incompetent economists for the Great Recession.

What Did He Say?

Salient excerpts and comments (emphasis added):

1. “Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy.”
   [This is the first sentence and it is already a false premise! Only Keynesians think that way. E.g. Austrian macroeconomists see it differently.]
2. “But there might be a problem even deeper than statistical narrowness: the failure of modern growth theory to emphasize adequately that people are fundamentally social creatures.”
   [Why is he limiting himself artificially to examining economic growth theory?]
3. “There is a certain absurdity to the obsession with maximizing long-term average income growth in perpetuity, to the neglect of other risks and considerations. Consider a simple thought experiment. Imagine that per capita national income (or some broader measure of welfare) is set to rise by 1% per year over the next couple of centuries. .... Now suppose that we lived in a much faster-growing economy, with per capita income rising at 2% annually. In that case, per capita income would double after only 35 years, and an eight-fold increase would take only a century. Finally, ask yourself how much you really care if it takes 100, 200, or even 1,000 years for welfare to increase eight-fold.”
   [This is a par excellence blunder committed by an what seems to be a Keynesian economist. How did this man manage to become professor? Rogoff never understood that economic growth is an abstraction and to many economists, a meaningless aggregation. What really counts is the underlying economic activity that produces among other things better medical treatments, more life conveniences and so much more. Yes, it matters a lot if there is only sub par economic growth.]
4. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to worry about the long-term sustainability and durability of global growth? Wouldn’t it make more sense to worry whether conflict or global warming might produce a catastrophe that derails society for centuries or more?”
5. [Durability of economic growth?? Economic activity goes in business cycles, economic growth is not constant and it can be negative. In essence, this economist buys into the Global Warming hoax.]
6. “Perhaps a deeper rationale underlying the growth imperative in many countries stems from concerns about national prestige and national security.”
   [Economics is not concerned with national prestige nor national security professor Rogoff!]

Student Beware

I would not spend too much money on studying economics from professor Kenneth Rogoff!