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The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

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Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#11

Post by netcan »

brc wrote: post #4

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes. The…

I absolutely will not defend Keynes or any other idea in economics, inasmuch as they can possibly be implemented in the political process that decide on economic policies.

That said, I do not think this is a case of a bad economist.

Economics theory is theory... theory that attempts to quantify societal behaviour, various cooperation dynamics, measurable output, etc. None of them know how to deal with various problems like "quality" & "technology" even though all economists admit they are pretty important. These theories usually have money playing a central role in some way). Anyway, they're theories about people acting together in big groups economics calls markets.

Political dynamics is another piece of the puzzle. So is every other meme in society. In some place homosexuals are allowed by society. In some places it is banned. Why now? Why not in 1750 or 2235? There are theories about how to quantify and predict here too, but obviously the ability of theories about such things are not up to the task of making consistent predictions.

Asimov's "psychohistory" is a fictional discipline which is basically economics, historical determinism, political science etc. The fictional twist is that these theories can make consistent predictions within very usable margins of error.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#14

Post by Gravityloss »

brc wrote: post #4

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes. The…

There's is some government spending that has to be done anyway, but can be shifted in time so it's done when there's a recession. Things like bridge rebuilding or warships.

Of course, if you're in recession for 8 years, you start running out of such things.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#15

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

netcan wrote: post #11
brc wrote: post #4

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes. The…

I absolutely will not defend Keynes or any other idea in economics, inasmuch as they can possibly be implemented in the political process that decide on economic policies. That said, I do not think this is a case of a bad economist. Economics theory is theory... theory that attempts to quantify societal behaviour, various cooperation dynamics, measurable output, etc. None of them know how to deal with various problem…

Have a look at what Keynes wrote in 1930. "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren." http://www.econ.yale.edu/smith/econ116a/keynes1.pdf

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#16

Post by VLM »

qaq wrote: post #10

Obviously oil price has 0 correlation with cost of shipping.

A rule of thumb is trucking spends 1/3 on fuel, more efficient rail spends 1/4 on fuel. Shipping is even more efficient, so its likely under 1/4 total costs.

(edited to emphasize that if fuel cost magically dropped to zero, costs could not drop more than perhaps 20%. And fuel has dropped, but not to magical zero)

Capex and maintenance are expensive.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#17

Post by guessthat »

Gravityloss wrote: post #14
brc wrote: post #4

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes. The…

There's is some government spending that has to be done anyway, but can be shifted in time so it's done when there's a recession. Things like bridge rebuilding or warships. Of course, if you're in recession for 8 years, you start running out of such things.

What are you suggesting here? Forgoing the building of civilian infrastructure and military assets until a recession is what?

Also, if you have data supporting your hypothesis, I would be very interested to see it.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#18

Post by hellofunk »

This reminds me of Ted Cruz's statistical "evidence" that over a 17 year period, the Earth is not warming. Because he started his 17 year period by including an unusually warm year, thereby significantly changing the outcome of the average. Had he looked at a 16-year or 18-year average, his "evidence" works against him.

Also like the "lesswrong" folks who use statistics to make grand claims. Statistics is not a looking glass. It is a math that is only as useful as the wisdom of its practitioner, and can lead to false confidence.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#19

Post by brudgers »

foobarian wrote: post #3
ptype wrote: post #2

These charts are meaningless with such a short history, at least include 2008 in them.

I also don't appreciate that the Y axes are not 0-based.

It's perhaps more egregious because the article leads with Volvo truck orders falling to approximately zero in a 99% one year drop.

This anchors the reader to misread 50% reductions from peak over the past five years and leaved reasons for the spikes which created the peaks unexamined.

One thing is clear is that the article doesn't point to a Volvo.

Re: The Shipping News Suggests Economic Weakness

#20

Post by acjohnson55 »

Gravityloss wrote: post #14
brc wrote: post #4

The world economy is dominated by people in governments who believe that printing money, burying it and paying people to dig it up again will increase the amount of trucks built and goods shipped. No amount of failure of this theory will be enough for it to be abandoned, because it has a certain amount of truthiness to it, and it excuses profligate and wasteful behaviour. Both these things are fun and buy votes. The…

There's is some government spending that has to be done anyway, but can be shifted in time so it's done when there's a recession. Things like bridge rebuilding or warships. Of course, if you're in recession for 8 years, you start running out of such things.

Funny thing is, there's plenty of rebuilding we could be doing, which would be quite stimulative, but it's politically unpopular because it would involve some tax and spend upfront, which would put a bit of a pinch on people in the middle and upper classes. Ironically, those same people stand to benefit from the lower classes having more discretionary income.
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