Category Archives: Science and Explanation

The Significance of Burley’s And Csapo’s Characteristic Equation And Its Root Solution

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Our references in this section are [Burley, 1992-2] and [Burley and Csapo, 1992-1].

Burley, Peter and Csapo, Laszlo, (1992) Money Information in Lonergan-von Neumann Systems, Economic Systems Research, Vol 4, No. 2, 1992 [Burley and Csapo, 1992-1]

Burley, Peter (1992) Evolutionary von Neumann Models, Journal of Evolutionary Economics 2 , 269-80 [Burley, 1992-2]

We consider a game-theoretic, von Neumann model of the transitional process from an initial stationary state to a more abundant stationary state, with matrix A of inputs and matrix B of outputs containing explanatory functional variables.  (continue reading)

Two Summaries in Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics

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.I.   Summary of the Analysis:  Heuristic, Observations, and Discoveries

.II.  Summary of the Argument (verbatim from CWL 15, 5-6)

.III. Supplement to the Summaries

(Continue Reading)

Superpositionings Imagined; from Sequential to All-At-Once in a Single View

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I do not have a video capability on this website, but perhaps the reader could, in his/her imagination, superpose simultaneously upon the Diagram of Rates of Flow several key formulas and images. This exercise and self-testing should be beneficial to the serious student.  In addition to seeing and having insight into each image in a sequence, the reader would, by superposition see the inner workings and interrelations of the velocities and accelerations all at once in interdependence rather than alone and separately.  The superpositioning of each diagram with its formulas offers the opportunity to consider the ideas and schemes one-at-a-time. one-against-one, and all-at-once.  An imagining and understanding and affirming would bring home to the reader’s mind the full complexity of the always-current, purely dynamic, organic process.  And it would help the reader to appreciate the wisdom in Lonergan’s orderly presentation.

Here is a list of key formulas and images to be considered: Continue reading →

Alan S. Blinder’s Reply to John H. Cochrane

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“δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης.” (Heraclitus)

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.”  (translation of Heraclitus)

Each of the 1970’s, 1980s and current 2020s has featured its own unique and nuanced combinations of circulating flows of products and money in phases of normative expansion, divergent boom; and corrective contraction. The flows of these decades are not all identical flows which anyone can simply reference to justify a present shallow opinion.

The Wall Street Journal of Monday, August 7, 2023 included Alan S. Blinder’s reply to John H. Cochrane.  (See the two posts below on this Home Page.) Continue reading →

Alan S. Blinder’s Article, “Team Transitory Had a Point About Inflation”

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Alan S. Blinder (Princeton) had an article in The Wall Street Journal of Thursday, 7/20/2023 entitled Team Transitory Had a Point About Inflation

Prof. Blinder was concerned to relate the recent and current inflation to a) supply shocks, and b) the speed and extent of the manipulation of interest rates. Our concern is rather to explain the recent and current inflation as formally caused, and thus explained rather than merely postulated, by a) the recent flooding of the economic system – given its capacity, state of productivity, and phase of expansion – with trillions of dollars of free money, and b) the circulation of those inflation-causing trillions of free dollars throughout a) tiers of income and propensities to consume, and b)  two productive operative circuits and the unproductive Redistributive Function, in which sit the stock and bond trading operations. Continue reading →

Key Concepts of CWL 15, Section 26: The Cycle of Basic Income

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There is sufficient content in this Section 26 to serve as the basis of an impressive graduate thesis featuring explanatory first- and second-order differentiations of interdependent functional activities implicitly defined by their functional relations to one anther.  The set of equations would constitute a significant part of a complete explanatory theory.

  • Part I: Introductory

  • Part II – Divergent Flows of Products and Money; Consequent Inflation or Deflation

    • Case A: The problem of an inadequate rate of saving in a surplus expansion; I”/(I’+I”)

    • A note re stagflation stifling a full surplus expansion

    • Case B: The problem of an excessive rate of saving in a basic expansion

  • Part III – Outline of Traditional Theory’s Lack of Understanding re Artificially Manipulating Interest Rates

  • Part IV – Selected Excerpts and Comments Relevant to CWL 15, Section 26, “The Cycle of Basic Income,”  pages 133-44

Continue reading →

Should Anyone Brag About a “Soft Landing?”

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First, suppose an initially equilibrated economy.  Then, suppose that a lagging, though severe, inflation is effected by an injection of additional money, which is not correlated with, and is in excess of, the magnitudes and frequencies of the productive requirements of this economy,  If, finally, after the lagging, severely-damaging inflation, there is a  merely-gradual decline of the rate of inflation, do you think that anyone should brag about the achievement of a metaphorical “soft landing?” Continue reading →

Philip McShane’s Lecture Notes for a Yearlong Course in Physics

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In our Acknowledgments and Thanks, we state that Philip McShane understood Lonergan’s macroeconomic dynamics better than anyone else.  His lecture notes below provide evidence of the brilliance McShane brought to Lonergan’s Functional Macroeconomic Dynamics..
We have also insisted that those with a strong background in mathematics and physics are the best candidates for genuine understanding and appreciation of the revolutionary nature of Lonergan’s macroeconomic dynamics.  Similar patterns in physical science and in macroeconomic science are similarly understood and formulated!
To access, download, read, and be enlightened by Philip McShane’s two sets of lecture notes in physics, click below on either of the titles of the two lectures.
“Mathematical Physics: Statics” Lecture notes prepared for a yearlong course on mathematical physics, a first year honors course in University College Dublin, 1959-1960.

“Mathematical Physics: Dynamics” Lecture notes prepared for a yearlong course on mathematical physics, a first year honors course in University College Dublin, 1959-1960

“Lonergan’s ‘Circulation Analysis’: A Discussion”

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“Lonergan’s ‘Circulation Analysis’: A Discussion” is a typescript from a tape made at the Thomas More Institute, Montreal, November 4, 1979. Taking part in the discussion were Eric O’Connor, Michael Gibbons, Philip McShane, and Eileen de Neeve. Nicholas Graham made the transcription.  Click, on the underlined title within this very paragraph.

 

Philip McShane above