Economic Ramblings, or First Draft

The foundational notion of full employment is ludicrous. Output potential is consistently growing due to improvements in technology and worker productivity. The concept of a boom time outstripping the full employment capabilities negates the notion of full employment. In pure Keynesian terms according to the short run aggregate supply one cannot produce over the long term aggregate supply curve. This makes no sense because the average supply produced cannot equal out to the LRAS curve if it cannot go past the LRAS curve at any point. In Friedman’s eyes we are always by mistake producing more than we should. In the opposite way, how does a LRAS curve exist that is smaller than the consistent SR average? In my view the immobile and vertical LRAS curve is a facade. The LR is extremely significant because it is the indicator of current economic conditions.

What are the assumptions integrated into the LRAS curve?The first is demand. The human capacity for greed would result in, prices and employment aside, unlimited demand, in theory. Price, of course, limits demand. However, long term prices of goods are relatively consistent in comparison to other goods, albeit one condition. Full employment matters to the LRAS curve by imposing the idea of a limit of possible production. From the nice word full (hazily defined as 4% unemployment) we get ideas such as low and high unemployment.

These limits give us the idea of a steady, inevitable long term supply of goods. These limits truly are based upon one thing: scarcity. So now that I mentioned the first word one learns in economics give me a half second to explain this. We have misconstrued what scarcity means. Scarcity does not mean we should increase profit on things such as energy until it runs out. Also, this does not mean that because of limited resources we should employ less people. Scarcity means that efficiency services will become the top job creating industry in the nearing future. I am not saying the same thing as “green jobs.” Those jobs are primarily rhetoric driven. How can making farmland produce plastic (those cute little plastic corn cups) be good for the environment? How can inputing fossil fuels and receiving less food energy be green? No, the efficiency will have to be different. In a word, the green jobs concept must cease to be a political ideological scheme and be efficient. People can be employed and fed without reducing the, gasp, supply of humanity (single child, abortion, forced use of contraceptives, reduction of elderly care, etc.) Instead people have to find ways to serve them.

Stirling Castle

This trip to Stirling was a touristy business trip. My plans were to get on the train, speed walk to the castle, and then just soak it in. Historically Stirling has been a strategic city. The safest fording spot and small bridge for leagues lies within the town limits on the Firth River. The small Stirling bridge connects northern and southern Scotland. Stirling Castle is fascinating in the walkability (liberty with language there) and restoration. The curators, faced with the damage done by decades of military stationing in the castle, decided to opt for showing how it looked in 1540 instead of the ruins. The castle has been an ancestral residence for many Kings and Queens of Scotland. James IV and James V enacted the most notable improvements. The castle is famed for the circular carved wooden pictures that hung on the ceiling in the dining room. The disks were from Polish wood. They were about seven inches thick. Images on them ranged from the court poet, Hercules, Julius Caesar, James IV, or putti. The castle was most impressive in the military design. This was clearly a fortress first. Looking down from the battlements you could see for miles around. To the east near the new bridge, William Wallace had perhaps his most decisive rout of English forces. The sage Blind Harry in 1477 recounts that at last 'Scotland was fre, that lang in baill had beyne, Throw Wallace won fra our fals enemys keyn.' The National Wallace Monument rises up on the Craig Abbey hill behind the ford. Looking down you can see the Church of the Holy Rude, one of Great Britain's best late medieval churches. I am pretty ignorant on architecture in general, but I nevertheless enjoyed the name of the kirk. The castle is famous for the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries. The ones hanging are recent remakes, hand crafted on the site. John Rockefeller purchased the original Renaissance masterpieces and donated them to the Met in NY, just another whim purchase I am sure. In a primarily pre-literate world, tapestries were powerful speakers through symbols. The seven tapestries show the Unicorn's flight, strength, death, and resurrection as the noble creature was clearly a Christ figure. I like the U.K.'s interpretation of unicorn's better than the U.S.'s.

Picture Recap

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McManus

I'm in early for a breather. I slept in much of the day, alarms will be set from tomorrow on. A second asleep is not completely a second wasted. For lunch I had chicken stroganoff which has no pasta and pickles in a sour cream sauce. Needless to say, I'm having to branch out a tad.

The highlight of my day was a trip to the McManus Galleries. The museum and art gallery occupies the center of the city. Out front are statues of Queen Victoria and Robert Burns. The environmental section of the museum was pretty fun because for the first time I could see (stuffed) all the Redwall characters in one place. Brian Jacques obviously took liberty with the size because a shrew with a bandana and short rapier could not easily take on a stoat! I also felt like I was in Morrowind because of the artifacts such as ancient spear tips and Roman coins that were on display. The Pict stone carving were very moving. I most enjoyed the Scottish Nationalist Victorian Era paintings. Later I walked by the Dunhope Castle, renovated and used by the University of Aberthay. Looking forward to watching a film on Margaret Thatcher tonight.