Procrustean Art of Backtracking: Episode of Mythology

 

Theory from Science. Scientific theories are all about causality: A cause results in the effect. If we set the end, we might find a means to have the end obtained. If a self-claimed scientist, abstract or empirical, gets the causality wrong, he shall convincingly confuse innocent citizens, domestic or alien. As such, we may call “reverse causation” the first sin of science.

All Correlations are Not Equal. In practice of concurrence, most anything is correlated nearly everything else. In that sense, “correlation” is a matter of degree. I the Meanest do not  only share the same period of time with a little less mean family but also with all different kinds of celebs. Alas, I cannot with the closest related and most honorable parents of mine!

             On the contrary, causality of different direction results in a great difference in kind, such as a plan of highest feasibility versus a pipedream. In general, reverse causation like superstition does more harm to the community than good.  

             At any rate, there are various kinds of correlation including the following:

1)     Causality

2)     Reverse causality

3)     Presence of a third cause

4)     Sheer coincidence

Measurement to Account for “Economy.” Efficiency, or “economy” in economics, relies first of all on measurements. As well-known exogenous to macroeconomics, the result of measurement always and everywhere comes with a metric, or “unit of account” in various scales and dimensions.

Procrustean Bed. When the metric is wrong or undefined, an hypothesis, however nice and plausible may it be, can by no means be a theory. Oftentimes particularly in macroeconomics, we come across propositions made like the Procrustean bed in Greek mythology mainly because of metric amnesia.

             Very convenient and enticing, but the Siren Song is nearby. Watch out!

             We navigate through some territories as listed below of macroeconomics.

1)              The price as the cause 2)              The interest rate as the cause 3)              The downward money demand 4)              The vertical money supply 5)              The down-sloping investment 6)              The upward-sloping savings 7)              Leisure at cost of consumption 8)              The IS-LM model 9)              The short run AS curve 10)           The long run AS curve

11)             The sticky price model 12)             The AD curve; Bernanke style 13)             The Phillips curve 14)             The Taylor rule 15)             Okun’s law 16)             The William Baumol Equation 17)             Motives of liquidity preference 18)             The functions of money 19)             The growth-inflation tradeoff 20)             The art of monetary policy