anon realizes we’ve been played

like there is definitely some truth to glean in economics. but as it stands, it’s a disservice to call it a science.

absolutely, my statement was real edgelordy, but the idea behind economics, that is to say "resource management" is a valuable field of study, but as you say, it's all been manipulated shit to make the rich richer.

Nobody ever looked at the laffer curve and went "huh, so we cut taxes for the rich, and tax revenue went down, that means we should raise taxes for the rich."

that it's based on the scientific method, and there's repeatable experiments/steps to take with proven and proveable outcomes.

"Trickle down economics" is a fucking lie, yet we have zillions of (economic) liberals.

This post is specifically speaking to the cases where they use simplified models to inform policy. Not all economists are stupid and it is good that the field is improving on its weathered past. But the “science” which is taught to justify oppression, that’s still also real propaganda that is being pushed. See i.e. the Laffer curve.

I love the implication that a "rational actor" would choose death over losing money

"Econ 101" is just that and if you think it's representative of "economists" you're dunning-krugering.

There are a lot of very competent interdisciplinary socio-economic scientists. The problem is that no-one listens to them because everyone still has the hots for the ghost of fucking Milton Friedman and trickle-down raeganomics.

Populist ideologues will always promote simple economic models, that's not the economists' fault. Sociologists can tell you why bad economic policy is self-sustaining under democratic capitalism but they can't really do anything about it because no one asks for their opinion.

Hell, right now the US is ruled by a moron whose understanding of economics is so bad that even the most hard-line libertarian economists are saying "you wot m8".

No, but you can examine historical conditions with largely similar situations aside from the variable you're studying. And you can do more limited experiments without emulating a national economy.

You can also look at "artificial" economies in games like EVE Online; I seem to recall a few economics papers coming from behavior seen there.

Also the Phillips curve is a two variable snapshot from a multi variate world (iow a simplification so freshmen can understand). The right hand graph is clearly not holding the other non graphed variables constant, hence you don't get anything useful.

Economics as taught below PhD level is about simplifying down concepts to make a complex system understandable.

Phillips curve says that as unemployment gets worse the ability of suppliers to raise prices gets weaker because consumers have less money.

Of course consumer demand is only one facet of inflation, there's a whole system of variables there.

Minimum wages aren't necessarily a thing you must have, provided unions are strong in the labour market. We don't have a legally mandated minimum wage here in Sweden, but it only works because CLAs are so common and the unions are constantly working on it. If people start slacking and stop actively working within unions, or the capitalist asswipes keep trying to undermine the Swedish labour market model, that shit's going to fall apart quickly.

Musk and his garbage car company for example is one of the most recent occurrences of a company trying its best to undermine the Swedish model. There's a strike that's been going on since 2023 because of it. The strategy is essentially just enshittification; offer good terms and wages until the unions are weakened, then throw it all out, run over your workers and there'll be no recourse since the unions are gone.

I think the only argument against legally mandated minimum wages that I've heard that I personally think hold water is that politicians are notoriously slow at changing things so you might end up with a minimum wage that remains the same for 20-30 years. That said, I feel like that's easily solved if you have an institution that is assigned to keep track of the general expenses a person has on a year to year basis, and base a minimum wage on that. That's not to say I think minimum wage should be subsistence minimum, it should meet and exceed that, because the stress that comes with living on subsistence minimum isn't sustainable.

Having previously worked at a company without a CLA I can safely say I'll never do that again. Sure it was a lovely place to work at, but having the same salary several years in a row really sucked. At my current company we get the union negotiated yearly increases, plus potential bonuses if you meet (or exceed) your development goals.

i swear! pick up the average econ 101 textbook and it’s just pro-capitalist propaganda. and not like veiled either—freshmen in college are getting told “here’s why minimum wages never work” while at the same time getting told “but corporate bailouts are just natural and nothing we can do to stop them”—and no real analysis, just propaganda.

Have you ever actually taken a 100-level econ course?

The graph on the left demonstrates how employment rate influences inflation (and vice versa). The graph on the right is a historical account of inflation and unemployment in the US, which is not the same thing.

The graph on the right is subject to a lot more variables. The one on the left is also a simplified model. It's not really one to one.

Nope you are misreading the situation. Both graphs show the inflation rate with unemployment rate,

Don't believe I am, and I wrote the same. Please read it carefully.

If the charts were of different data axes

Didn't suggest this either.

The plot on the right states in US, 1970s onward, ie, different points in time. Sure, inflation rate & unemployment rate changed in the US over time. Do you know what else changed in the US over time? Absolutely anything.

Scientific prediction requires control: it cannot make accurate predictions when relevant variables are left uncontrolled. Take for instance the ideal gas law. When temperature is constant, we can reasonably predict volume & pressure to vary inversely for ideal gases. If temperature is at least known, then we can still make a prediction (a function of temperature). However, if temperature is uncontrolled, no prediction is possible. Models only fit the conditions they're designed to model.

As mentioned before, economic models typically expect ceteris paribus (all other relevant variables held constant). The article you linked states the Phillips curve models economy only in the short-run. The US economy over a span of years doesn't satisfy any of those conditions. Therefore, the model doesn't apply.

Attempting to refute a model by applying it to situations it doesn't claim to model is a strawman.

They weren't talking about YOU.