Newshoggers Archive: Cherry Picking Adam Smith

Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.

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Friday, October 21, 2011

Cherry Picking Adam Smith

Commentary By Ron Beasley

Graeme Maxton may be an economist but he doesn't have a lot of use for his peers.

In 2008 the world economy reached a turning point. It wasn't just a bump in the road, we reached the end of a 30-year period of history. We can't carry on that path anymore... The belief that growth was going to go on forever, the belief that we could carry on borrowing, the belief that consumption was the goal, all of that has to change, because we simply can not carry on borrowing anymore. I mean, if you look at the average American consumer they've borrowed beyond their capacity. Banks are bust, although we don't talk about that. The Federal Government's debts are just off the scale. And at some point, you have to stop borrowing or go bust. And start paying that money back.

And nobody wants to do this, nobody wants to hear the message that we can't carry on growing on forever. But ... "on a finite planet, the only people who believe we can grow forever are the mad, or economists."

So we have an economist channeling Richard Heinberg - we have reached the end of growth as we have know it. But he concludes with this:

We also need to ask ourselves what life is about. It is not about economic growth. There are a vast array of other pursuits that can fulfill us�social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual�which do not drain the planet of its resources or promote disharmony.We need to take control of our future, to create just and sustainable societies.

Most of all, we need to develop a model for the future that is not held captive by the free market, by consumption and by growth for its own sake. We need to think differently about inequality, poverty and population. We need to think about how we can restore the bonds of good society. We need not abandon free market economics entirely�but we need to ensure that our economies are managed to meet our needs�all of our needs.

Via Dave Cohen

The End of Progress: How Modern Economics Has Failed Us