Reply to Jason Smith's Criticism
of
On the Pseudo-Scientific Nature of Friedman’s as if Methodology
October 30, 2016
Dear Jason,In reply to Economist shouldn't be used as source for what is "scientific"
October 28, 2016Oh my. You seem to be so flabbergasted by my paper criticizing the failure of economists to abide by the principles of science that it has led you to declare: “Since economics is oh so scientific in its approach, we should of course consult an economist on how to be scientific.” Judging from the tenor of the rest of your criticism, this sarcastic remark seems to say that “economics is so unscientific an economist can’t possibly understand how truly scientific economics realy is.” Which side of this argument are you on? If you wish to argue both sides it’s ok with me. At least that way we may be able to agree at least half the time ;-)
You explain ‘effective theory’ in terms of Friedman’s as if methodology and point out that “all of physics today is an effective theory” as if this has something to do with my paper. My paper is about how Friedman’s as if methodology is used in economics. It’s not about how it is used in physics. I don’t know that much about physics, but I believe there is a fundamental difference between the two disciplines in this regard.
As far as I can tell, the basic paradigms of physics are not, for the most part at least, based on demonstrably false assumptions and these paradigms can be used to explain a tremendous amount of data in the real world. I see much of economics to be fundamentally different. The basic paradigm of economics (specifically, the perfectly-competitive general equilibrium model) is a) based on demonstrably false assumptions, b) has virtually no correspondence to anything that exists in the real world, and c) can be used to explain virtually nothing.
Now the fact is that I don’t really have any objection to this paradigm in that I don’t see it as completely worthless, but I do object when economists make arguments based on the false assumptions of this paradigm that, in my view, make no sense at all other than as a pseudo-intellectual justification for policy recommendations derived from ideological beliefs. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that this sort of problem was more or less purged from physics sometime in the seventeenth or eighteenth century as the university system rose and the power of the church declined. As a result, I don’t see the lack of consensus in physics to be in any way comparable to that in economics due to the ideological blindness I see as the fundamental cause of the lack of consensus in economics.
You are, of course, correct about “it is the purview of engineering, not science, to catalog the circumstances under which a theory works and does not work.” That was poorly written, and I should not have been surprised that some readers would miss the point I was trying to make. It should be noted, however, that my point is not that difficult to grasp. I did not write the above statement with reference to probing the limitations of quantum field theory or general relativity. I wrote it with reference to Friedman’s example of scientist probing the limits of Galileo’s law of falling bodies as a guide to methodology in economics. I seriously doubt many physicists spend time on this kind of problem, though I can imagine situations in which engineers might be motivated to so, and I also doubt that scientists in general view probing the limits of discredited theories as the essence of science.
You respond to my statement that “Newton’s second law assumes that force is equal to mass times acceleration” with the definitive assertion: “It does not. It defines force as the rate of change of momentum.” I find this a bit confusing. If you write the second law as F=aM your statement would seem to make sense, but if it is written as a=F/M it would appear to define acceleration, and M=F/a would appear to define mass. When I looked to see how Newton actually presented his second law (which I quoted in footnote 6 in the original publication on my website) I found: “The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.” Now this sounds to me as if Newton was defining a relationship, not simply force, mass, or acceleration, and it is the relationship that I believe is assumed in physics, not simply the definition of force.
In any event, we are talking about semantics again, not substance. This semantic difference does not address the substance of the issue I raised, namely, my belief that if the assumptions underlying Newton’s law had been demonstrably false his law would not have been accepted by physicists in the way in which economists are willing to accept false assumptions in economics.
The same problem arises with regard to your statement: “The assumptions weren't rejected because they were unrealistic. They were rejected because the theory was wrong and a new theory was put forward that was more empirically accurate.” Now we can quibble over whether ‘unrealistic’ is different from ‘wrong’, but if that’s what you wish to do you will have to defend the way in which Friedman used this term and the way in which it is used by economists, not by the way it is used by physicists, however that may be. It seems quite clear to me, even if it is not clear to you, that “unrealistic” is nothing more than a euphemism for terms such as ‘wrong’ or ‘false’ or the expression ‘contradicted by empirical evidence’ in Friedman’s arguments and as used by other economists as well. It's the term economists use when they don't wish to use the more explicit term or expression.
You are undoubtedly correct in your observation that some biologists and chemists may object to my saying that “all of the major advances in the physical sciences” came about as a result of rejecting demonstrably false assumptions in physics, and I do apologize for my carelessness in putting it that way, but your objection to my complaining that mainstream economists justified deregulating the financial system “on the basis of an economic theory that assumes speculative bubbles cannot exist” because “[t]his is not an assumption, but a consequence of the assumptions” is playing with words again. How does this affect the substance of the issue I raised here?
How does the distinction between false implications and assumptions change the fact that the assumed truth of this implication of the theory ignores hundreds of years (thousands according to Graeber) of human experience with speculative bubbles leading to economic, political, and social catastrophes? Do you think it makes a difference that it is a false implication that is assumed to be true rather than a false assumption when an absurd theory is used to justify a disastrous economic policy? I don’t think so—especially when that false implication is the result of a set of false assumptions—and I do not believe physicists in general would think so either.
Then we come to:
I'm pretty sure that government spending is discussed as part of mainstream economics. Let me check. Yep [pdf]. Is this supposed to be some kind of other role? Has Blackford come up with an economic theory that is more empirically accurate than mainstream economics that fits his assumption of the primacy of government (that differs from mainstream theories where government actions matter)? If he hasn't (and he hasn't) then Blackford is being seriously hypocritical. He is committing the exact same crime (assuming an unrealistic role of government for which there is no empirical evidence) he accuses Friedman of (assuming an unrealistic role of rational agents for which there is no empirical evidence).
followed by a litany of gratuitous accusations and innuendo:
Is Blackford going to use a single data point as evidence for the failure of mainstream economics? Apparently, yes. And here he is trying to lecture people about what is "scientific"!
And you can look at economic stagnation in terms of the mainstream paradigm (and even with a neoclassical slant that Blackford continues to conflate with mainstream economics).
Blackford wants us to be scientific. Let me give a positive example.
…heterodox economist can't seem to say how their theories connect to mainstream economics.
This is part of Sean Carroll's great crackpot (alternative science) checklist.
This is truly over the top. I would even say disingenuous if it weren’t for the fact that you obviously did not bothered to look beyond the paper you are so upset with to the eBook and three papers I link to in the references and at various places throughout the text to provide additional analysis and support for my arguments:
Liquidity-Preference/Loanable-Funds and The Long-Period Problem of Saving
A Note on Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, Money, and Prices
not to mention the brilliant book, Government Is Good, and website, http://www.GovernmentIsGood.com, published by Douglas Amy.
If you had bothered to look at these references (especially Ideology Verses Reality or Amy’s website) I’m pretty sure you would not have so flippantly assumed that adding government expenditures to an economic model is all you have to do to account for “the essential role of cooperative action through democratic government” in the economic system, and at the very least it would have become apparent to you that I have spent an excruciating amount of time and effort in examining data and attempting to develop a theory that explains that data. It also would have become apparent that I have spent a similar amount of time and effort in attempting to explain the inadequacies of the neoclassical paradigm as well, why that paradigm can’t explain the kind of economic situation we are in today, and how that paradigm can be extended in such a way as to correct this situation. You may not have thought that I did this very well and rejected what I had to say out of hand if you had read it, but you would have at least been able to see that I did try.
Now I don’t expect that if you had read these works you would have been very impressed by what you found. The fact is, I am not all that impressed with what I have been able to accomplish. I have no illusions to the effect that my work has reached the status of a Principia, but at least it does give economists something to think about even if physicists do not choose to do so. Nor do I expect that looking at these works would have changed your mind about how economics should be done. It is apparent that we have different views in this regard in that you seem to view the economic system as something comparable to a physical system that can be understood and explained by developing equilibrium models that accurately predict economic data. I see economics as much more than this.
I see economics as the study of a vital part of our social system that has evolved over time into a system of markets and governmental institutions that provides for the material wellbeing of the members of society. It has also evolved to a point where virtually every member of our modern society is dependent on the system itself for his or her very survival. I fear that if this system were to fail today as it did in the 1930s the results could be even more horrific than they were during the Great Depression which led us into World War II. As a result, I take economics very seriously and do not simply view it as an intellectual numbers game.
Even though I do not have any problem with your approach to economics so long as you don’t come up with economic policies that ignore the reality that is not in your models, I do not think your approach is enough. It seems to me that beyond predicting data we have to try to understand how the economic system works within society if we are to be able to assure that it does not falter. I see the stakes as being too high to put all of our eggs in one basket, as it were, and just try to make accurate predictions of the kinds of data you choose to examine while ignoring the institutions and social interactions that generate that data as well as data that may be, and I believe are relevant to the economic problems we face that you choose to ignore.
In any event, even though I doubt you would have been impressed by what I have written, if you had actually read what I have written you may have been able to see that I have, in fact, tried to deal with the kinds of things with which you think I should be concerned, and I would like to think that, at the very least, you would have had the decency to have avoided the kinds of gratuitous accusations and innuendo that appears in the latter part of your rather fatuous critique of my paper.
November 6, 2016
Dear Jason, Part IIIn reply to Economics, physics, and data: a response to Blackford
November 1, 2016It is exceedingly difficult for me to understand why you insist on defending the use of Friedman's methodology in physics in criticizing my paper. My paper is about the misuse of Friedman’s methodology in economics, not in physics.
Over the past fifty years mainstream economists have developed highly sophisticated mathematical models based on absurd assumptions that were justified in the name of Friedman's as if methodology. Those models were used as an intellectual justification for deregulating the financial system in a way that blew up the world's economy. This occurred in spite of the fact that hundreds, if not thousands of years of historical data have shown that unregulated or poorly regulated financial institutions inevitably lead to financial crises that, in turn, cause economic, political, and social catastrophes.
When I tried to discover why this happened I found that in spite of the overwhelming historical evidence that warned of the catastrophe that would result, virtually no mainstream economists spoke out against this deregulation as it took place, and those who tried were ridiculed and marginalized within the discipline of economics in much the same way you marginalize Minsky, Keynes, and what I have tried to do in Where Did All The Money Go?. I also discovered that the reason virtually no mainstream economists spoke out against this deregulation is that over the past fifty years free-market ideological beliefs have come to permeate the discipline of economics, facilitated by an egregious misuse of Friedman's as if methodology.
When I write a paper attempting to explain this misuse within the discipline of economics you ridicule my attempt mercilessly in defense of its use in physics. At the same time, in one of the posts you link to you claim:
"I am not defending the implications Friedman makes from this analogy about economics . . . . The problem is that this analogy doesn't defend against theories that fail to match the data which is a more serious issue in economics than a particular mathematical approach."
You will just have to forgive me for finding this a bit confusing.
When I present a reasoned analysis of the historical data and a detailed explanation as to why the inevitable result of deregulating or poorly regulating the financial system leads to a catastrophe, you insist on ignoring these historical data and my reasoned argument and explanation in the absence of a mathematical model that more accurately predicts the economic data that you want to predict—data that doesn't even include the variables that I see as being crucially important to an understanding of the historical data that I try to understand and explain. You boldly take this position in spite of the fact that this is the same kind of reasoning and argument used to ridicule and marginalize those economists who tried to oppose the economic policies that were responsible for blowing up the world’s economy in the first place.
This seemed rather confusing to me at first, but I now suspect the key to this mystery may be hidden in your response to my statement: "If you had bothered to look at these references ... it would have become apparent to you that I have spent an excruciating amount of time and effort in examining data and attempting to develop a theory that explains that data."
In response to this statement you reply:
Ah, the classic “you didn’t read my references". I actually did look at the references, but there appears to be no theoretical model of data at any of the links. There is a graph of some data in Ideology Verus Reality, as well in the links to chapters of his eBook in the Evonomics post, but that is not theory explaining data. Blackford seem to be telling a story that appears to be plausible and/or consistent with the data. However, what are the magnitudes of the effects of deregulation, inequality, and/or debt accumulation? Can I predict anything? We don't know because Blackford's theory is generally not a mathematical theory, and where it is (e.g. here), it is not compared to empirical data.
I have to apologize for my naiveté here in assuming you would understand what I was trying to do if you had read my work.
I was trained as a neoclassical economist in the 1960s and taught undergraduate neoclassical economics courses for twenty years. When I wrote Where Did All The Money Go? I wrote it as a narrative so that I could explain the financial crisis that began in 2007 and reached a climax in 2008 in a way that I thought, or at least hoped any undergraduate student or intelligent lay person who was interested in understanding this crisis could understand. At the same time, I hoped to be able to speak to professional economists (mostly in footnotes), especially younger economists and graduate students.
As a result, I did not write out equations and build econometric models in this eBook that would leave undergraduate students and lay people in a fog. I left that to others. Instead, I attempted to explain the causes of the crisis within the context of the fundamental neoclassical paradigm in which I was trained in the same way I would attempt to explain it to an undergraduate student in a principles of economics class. At the same time, I attempted to explain (again, mostly in footnotes) why my explanation (i.e., theory) cannot be examined within the standard neoclassical model, and I assumed that any competent economics graduate student or fellow economist would be able to understand my explanation since it is framed entirely within the context (I believe the term is ‘cosmology’ in physics) of the fundamental paradigm of neoclassical economics with an analysis that relies almost exclusively on Marshall’s partial-equilibrium methodology.
This, of course, may be a heroic assumption on my part as the discipline has moved on from the old neoclassical-synthesis that dominated the discipline in the 1960s through the 1970s based on Keynesian models to the new neoclassical-synthesis based on New Keynesian and Real Business Cycle models, and most of the founders of the old neoclassical-synthesis have succumbed to Planck’s theory of scientific progress. Unfortunately, since I left academia in the 1980s and did not keep up with subsequent advances in the discipline I cannot express my thoughts within the context of these new models. Nevertheless, I am at least hopeful that those who have kept up or were trained within the tradition of these new models will be able to translate my ideas from the old to the new since, so far as I can tell, the new seem to be subject to the same kinds of problems that I object to in the old. (Smith Romer Romer)
Given your bravado in discussing the methodology of economics, I assumed you would be able to make that translation into whatever economic paradigm you view the economy when I wrote the passage quoted above. Apparently, that was a mistake, and not one that is easily rectified.
It took me some ten years of undergraduate and graduate study followed by some fifteen or so years of researching within the discipline of economics to gain the level of understanding of economics I had obtained in the 1980s and another four or five years of intense reading and study since 2008 trying to catch up in order to get to where I am today. If you are unable to go beyond my narrative approach to explaining the problems within neoclassical economics and translate what I have to say in that narrative into whatever paradigm it is through which you view the economy, there is nothing I can do to bring you up to speed. The most I can do is try to explain it to you in the simplest terms I can and hope you will be able to understand.
In its simplest terms, my eBook examines the relationship between employment, income, the distribution of income, and debt.
Everything I know about economics tells me that employment and income depend upon the ability of employers to sell the output they produce, and if the levels of employment, output, income, and prices are to be stable (not change or be in equilibrium), the amount of money people choose to spend to purchase the output that employers choose to produce must be exactly equal to the total income generated in producing that output. (Actually, it’s the rate at which people choose to spend that must equal the rate at which income is generated, but I choose to keep the wording simple.) If more is chosen to be spent some combination of employment, output, income, and prices will increase and if less is chosen to be spent some combination of these variables will decrease.
This presents a problem because not all people choose to spend all of their income on currently produced output. Some income is used to purchase used cars, preexisting houses, land, and other items that are not part of current output. In addition, some income is just deposited in a bank and left there and some is used to purchase financial assets such as stocks or bonds or is directly lent out to those who are willing to borrow for whatever reason. These kinds of dispositions of money income are also not expenditures on current output.
To the extent people choose to spend or not to spend their income in these ways, the amount of money people choose to spend to purchase the output that is produced must be less than the total income generated in producing that output. This must be compensated for by an equal amount of money spent by other people who choose to spend in excess of their income if the levels of employment, output, income, and prices are to be stable. This can be accomplished by these other people selling used assets, land, or financial assets for the purpose of purchasing currently produce output in excess of their income or by borrowing money directly or taking money just sitting in the bank out of the bank for this purpose.
Even though there are many mechanisms by which this compensation takes place, the primary mechanism by which it takes place in our modern economy is through the creation of debt, either through the sale of newly created debt instruments, trade credit, or direct loans. This means that—given those factors within society that determine the other forms of compensation for income not spent on current output—there exists a specific rate of debt creation that must occur in order to maintain a specific level of income.
This phenomenon is perfectly normal and is an essential mechanism by which the system functions, but it does pose the possibility of a serious problem. Namely, if the rate at which debt must be created in order to maintain the level of income that corresponds to the full employment of our resources is greater than the rate at which income increases when the system is at full employment it means that full employment can only be maintained with an increase in debt relative to income. Maintaining full employment in this situation is unsustainable in the long run as the need to service the debt out of income must eventually overwhelm the system and cause it to become unstable.
This is where the distribution of income comes in. Given the state of mass-production technology and productivity within the system, an increase in the concentration of income received by a small minority at the top can lead to a situation that requires an increase in the rate at which debt must be created in order to maintain full employment that exceeds the rate of increase in income.
This statement is little more than a mathematical truism that anyone with your apparent understanding of math should be able to understand implicitly since the math involved in working out the circumstances in which this will occur and when it will not is little more than a high school algebra problem. It does, however, require a basic understanding of the national income accounting system which I’m not about to try to explain to you if you don’t already understand this sort of basic economics. If this is the case you will have to either look it up in some principle of economics textbook or just take my word for it.
I would note, however that I did give a basic explanation as to how I believe this works in Chapters 1 through 3 of Where Did All The Money Go?. Specifically, in those chapters I attempt to explain how a situation in which full employment could not be achieved in the absence of an increase in debt relative to income led to the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s as well as the Crash of 2008 and the Great Recession we are in the midst of today. And in Chapters 4-11 I attempt to explained in (what I am quite sure for some is) excruciating detail the mechanisms by which this situation came into being and why it is unsustainable.
In addition:
- In footnote 16 in Chapter 3 of Where Did All The Money Go? I explain why it is impossible to examine the kind of problem I examine in this eBook within the context of the basic competitive model that stands at the very core of neoclassical economics in that the way in which representative agents are used in specifying this model implicitly assumes that this problem does not exist.
- In A Note on Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, Money, and Prices I show how the Marshallian paradigm of partial-equilibrium analysis makes a causal analysis of dynamic behavior possible within the context of Keynes’ general theory while the Walrasian perspective of neoclassical economics makes this kind of analysis impossible within the neoclassical paradigm, (I also show how Keynes’ Marshallian methodology is consistent with a Marshallian general equilibrium model that is fundamentally different than the Walrasian general equilibrium model that underlies neoclassical economics and how Keynes’ aggregate equations can be derived from the equations of his implicit general equilibrium model, but this is not relevant to what we are talking about here.)
- In Liquidity-Preference/Loanable-Funds and The Long-Period Problem of Saving I explain the way in which the causal nature of Keynes’ dynamic analysis was perverted by the Keynesians into a descriptive analysis of a static equilibrium system. I also show the parallels between, and the complementary nature of, Keynes’ causal analysis of the long-period problem of saving and the theory of economic instability I develop in Where Did All The Money Go?, and I argue that my theory, combined with Keynes’ explanation of the long-period problem of saving, can be used to understand and explain how we have ended up in the kind of economic situation we find ourselves in today.
- In Chapter 12 of Where Did All The Money Go? I not only summarize the theory I develop in this work, I make a host of predictions based on the implications of the realistic assumptions of that theory and my understanding of economic history.
It is now apparent to me from your response to my suggestion that you did not read my references, “I actually did look at the references, but there appears to be no theoretical model of data at any of the links”, that you lack the basic understanding of neoclassical economics and Marshall’s methodology needed to translate the way I have attempted to explain this into your understanding of economics. This impression is reinforced by your response to my complaint about your “litany of gratuitous accusations and innuendo”:
"L;DR These quotes are actually serious points, and Blackford avoids them by essentially calling them ad hominem attacks.
“I stand by the statements I made the list of quotes Blackford cites. He points to the 2008 financial crisis as evidence of the failure of ‘mainstream economics’. That literally is a single data point.”
which echoes your complaint in your previous post to the effect that:
Is Blackford going to use a single data point as evidence for the failure of mainstream economics? Apparently, yes. And here he is trying to lecture people about what is ‘scientific’!
This impression is further reinforced by your lecture on how to be scientific:
Blackford wants us to be scientific. Let me give a positive example. I think information transfer economics is a good example of being scientific. I probably fail sometimes, but I strive to apply my training as a theoretical physicist.
1. Clearly state your assumptions
2. Show how your theory connects to mainstream economic theory
3. Compare your theory to the empirical data and make predictions
4. Show how your theory is better than mainstream
It's not very complicated!
My initial reaction to these responses, especially to your lecture on being scientific, was: Wow! This guy is in a state of total denial! With regard to your lecture, the reason being that it seems quite clear to me that I have done all of things you list. There are no hidden assumptions in what I have written, and I have explained the relationship of my theory to mainstream economic theory as best I can. I have also compared my theory to empirical data throughout Where Did All The Money Go? and I have made innumerable predictions. What’s more, I have shown how my theory is better than mainstream theory.
It would appear that your problem is not that I haven’t done these things. It’s that I haven’t done them in the way you want me to do them in that I examine institutional and historical data—that is non-numerical empirical facts—and make institutional and historical predictions that go beyond the simple numerical ‘data’ and predictions that seem to be the only kind of empirical data and predictions you are able to understand.
Now I realized I’m not doing things the way you think they should be done, but then the One above has not bestowed upon you a special authority to dictate how scientific research must be done, or even how it should be done in economics, and there is no reason to believe that the mathematical methods of physics that you promote are in any way applicable to other scientific disciplines. After all, I suspect that even you do not expect to replace the periodic table in chemistry with a mathematically sophisticated information-transfer-theory model anytime soon. I would also note that while you find it ironic that “the EMH based theory of a random AR process does best at forecasting,” I find it ironic that you would think this fact in any way supports your view of the appropriate methods of science in economics. After all, the EMH model does exactly what you seem to think is the essence of science, namely, make accurate predictions, and, yet, it also played a central role in providing the intellectual justification for the deregulation of the financial system that brought the world’s economy to its knees in 2008.
In addition to your inability to understand the importance of non-numerical data in economics, your response to my criticism of mainstream theory and methodology to the effect that it is based on “a single data point” suggests a second reason you are unable to understand what I have written. The point you seem to have missed, and it is virtually impossible for me to fathom how you could have missed this simple and seemingly obvious point, is this:
That single data point is what I have set out to explain!
That single data point took mainstream economists totally by surprise and drove the entire world into an economic, political, and social crisis that shook the discipline of economics to its very core. Not only does that single data point correspond to a major economic, political, and social catastrophe that mainstream economic models assumed (ok, ok, implied) could not occur, it was follow by eight more data points of economic stagnation that mainstream theories are unable to explain as well.
The reason my theory is better than mainstream theory is not only because it can explain that data point and the eight years of stagnation that followed, it can also explain that other data point that mainstream theory has had so much difficulty explaining, namely, the Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed. What’s more, the methodology I have explained in A Note on Keynes’ General Theory of Employment, Interest, Money, and Prices and Liquidity-Preference/Loanable-Funds and The Long-Period Problem of Saving combined with the theory laid out in Where Did All The Money Go? can be used to understand and explain virtually all of the economic history in the US since the beginning of the twentieth century.
Can I prove this? Of course not. Have I constructed a sophisticate mathematical/econometric model and compared the predictions of my theory with the only kind of data and methodology you seem to be able to understand? No I have not, but I can assure you that, given my neoclassical training, if I were 25 and affiliated with a university I would probably spend the next five, ten, or even fifteen years trying to do just that. But I’m not 25 and have no affiliation with a university so instead of doing that I posted what I have written on my website along with An Open Letter to Economists Throughout the World that summarizes what I think is important and invites anyone who is interested to do with it what they will.
Now I could be wrong in the way in which I approach economics, but irrespective of whether I am right or wrong I think it’s time for you to do a bit of soul-searching, Jason.
I want you to sit down, take a deep breath, relax, take your time, and calmly think about how you responded to my “litany of gratuitous accusations and innuendo.” Instead of rising to the occasion and doing the right thing by apologizing for your gratuitous ad hominem attacks, you chose to double down by arguing that they “are actually serious points.”
Now you tell me, Jason, what kind of ‘scientist’ behaves like that?
Sincerely,
George H. Blackford, Ph.D.
www.rwEconomics.comPS: I have highlighted portions of, and added comments to, a PDF of your 11/1 reply to my 10/30 comment to your original 10/28 post that is available here.
