Katyia
2 October 2012 4:01AM
Response to memtitude, 1 October 2012 5:59PM
The problem, as he saw it, was that private-sector consumption and investment plans are formed in the face of expectations about the future economic environment that are inherently uncertain and subject to shifts that have more to do with emotions than with the rational calculations postulated in neoclassical economics. The associated Lucas critique argues that private-sector agents have rational expectations that take into account all the relevant information contained in a model of their behavior then forming their (usually differing) expectations. Their behavior is thus not invariant with regard to the policy interventions of governments or their agencies
theories of unemployment seem rather limited in view of animal spirit - - -
Full employment cannot be achieved because workers would shirk if they were not threatened with the possibility of unemployment. The curve for the no-shirking condition (labeled NSC) goes to infinity at full employment as a result. The inflation-fighting benefits to the entire economy arising from a presumed optimum level of unemployment has been studied extensively. The Shapiro-Stiglitz model suggests that wages are not bid down sufficiently to ever reach 0% unemployment. This occurs because employers know that when wages decrease, workers will shirk and expend less effort. Employers avoid shirking by preventing wages from decreasing so low that workers give up and become unproductive. These higher wages perpetuate unemployment while the threat of unemployment reduces shirkingWhile economists from the Classical school believe that the economy will tend to return to an equilibrium position whenever it is pushed away, and thus favor the concept of a "natural" rate, other economists question whether an economy is really a stable system at all. Some economists, including John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter (1883 –1950) envisioned economies as more dynamic and evolving. While Keynes is often associated with a rather pro-government political stance, and Schumpeter with the more libertarian, small-government views held by adherents of the Austrian School of economics, both Keynes and Schumpeter stressed the inherent instability of economic systems. To them, factors such as uncertainty, innovation, institutions, and technological advance made economies quite unpredictable
Wikipedia
It's called hydraulic fracturing or fracking, and some herald it as the future of clean, safe energy from natural gas. But from Pennsylvania to West Virginia to Arkansas, residents are seeing earthquakes, poisoned water courses and contaminated drinking water. So as this massively expanding industry gears up to pump out gas, from deeply buried muds and shales, those local concerns have states, such as New York's, introducing moratoriums. But beyond those immediate problems looms a larger issue - is fracking just a way for us to continue with our fossil-fuel fix, and so dodge the rapid switch to renewables that the planet's climate needs so badly?
http://www.earthtimes.org/energy/dangers-hydraulic-fracturing-poisoned-water-supplies-earthquakes/552/
Wikipedia