User talk:John Quiggin/archive2

DDT
Hi there. I'm sorry to bother you, but we both seem to be involved in an edit war over at DDT with Ultramarine. My beef with him/her is regarding his/her use of a dubious medical "journal" called the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (JAPS). I notice you've been disputing the nature of the organisations that he/she cites, and I was wondering if you knew anything about JAPS? It certainly seems like the in-house medical magazine of the AEI or some similar organisation. Anyway, apologies if this is outside your experience, but I just thought I'd ask. Best regards, --Plumbago 12:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I just redlinked it in my latest edit of DDT, but I hadn't seen it before that. It looks too nutty to be AEI, with campaigns against fluoridation and the like. An article describing it would be a good idea. My current approach is not to delete stuff from AFM and similar, but to label it clearly as advocacy material. The same could be done with JAPS, maybe a note that this is an opinion journal, not a scientific journal. Regards JQ 12:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Hey, JQ. That "biologist" thing was an oversight. Your version is better. As to Ultramarine, s/he is very difficult to deal with on the subject, which is why I've largely stayed away from editing DDT lately. Graft 17:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)


 * It looks like you've managed to convince Ultramarine of the unreliability of his/her sources, which is quite an achievement.JQ 23:51, 26 January 2006 (UTC)


 * I entirely agree. Well done Graft!  I was already beginning to lose the stomach for a dispute with him/her.  Even the JAPS references went!  Incidentally, at some stage I'll try to work up an article on JAPS as per your suggestion JQ.  Cheers, --Plumbago 09:29, 27 January 2006 (UTC)


 * As a start for an article on JAPS, I have added a section for it in the entry for it's parent organization Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.Terjen 06:14, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * This is a nice start. Maybe part of the quote in the main section referring to the journal could be moved to the section on the journal. JQ 12:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi again JQ. As the above makes clear, I never did get around to writing an article on JAPS; someone else beat me to it!  Anyway, there's a bit of a dispute going on there at the moment which I appear to have helped start.  One editor has suggested a request for comment, but another thinks this premature (although they are refusing to "properly" discuss things).  Anyway, I'm sure you've got plenty more interesting things to do, but if you've a minute I'd appreciate your view on it.  Best regards, --Plumbago 08:36, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi Plumbago. I dropped in, added a few details and links and expressed my opinions wrt apparent newbies who quote policy at length. Things seem to have quietened down now, but who knows.JQ 10:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi again JQ. Thanks very much for your comments at JPandS!  They do seem to have brought quiet to that forum.  My own view was very similar to that you stated, but I was far too lily-livered to put to the anon.  I'm too easily cowed by people quoting Wikirules.  Perhaps I need to pay attention to the advice I occasionally dole out about being bold.  Anyway, thanks again for your help.  Best regards, --Plumbago 10:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Milloy
When did he leave Cato, and where is this information posted? Has anyone connected (Cato, Milloy, Fox) issued a statement as to his resignation? Ace-o-aces 15:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * If you look at Cato Institute, you'll see it stated there. This info was introduced by an editor who's obviously a Cato insider. I checked the list of adjuncts and he's gone, but he was definitely there in December 2005. No statement as far as I know from Cato or Milloy, and of course none from Fox where he's still employed. You might want to read some more of my thoughts here

Category:Perfect competition
What else are you planning on putting into Category:Perfect competition?, it looks to me like Category:Competition was enough already. Martin 13:56, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I plan to add the various conditions for perfect competition such as Atomistic market. The main reason for creating this category, though, was as a consequence of creating the Category:Imperfect competition category (as well as Category:Monopoly (economics)) in line with the JEL classification codes system. I've put perfect and imperfect competition in as subcategories of Category:Competition. As a general response, by using the JEL system, I'm trying to implement a classification system that will have room for growth, even if some categories are relatively small to start with. JQ 22:29, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Monopoly categories
Hello John. I just wanted to let you know that when you nominate a category for renaming, it is important to post a notification template on each category's page. There are instructions for this at WP:CFD, but I've taken care of it for these two categories. 

By the way, I have also tentatively opposed your proposal, but I would like to hear more from you. Personally, I think that these topics are better left in broader categories like Category:Market failure and Category:Anti-competitive behaviour, both of which are very practically sized. Best regards. ×Meegs 12:02, 13 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for this advice. I originally put this up in the discussion page, and was pointed to CfD. :On the general point, I'm trying to implement a categorisation scheme, based on the JEL classification codes that has room for expansion, which I hope and expect will take place. I've done a quick skim for articles relevant to monopoly and found a fair number (I created two articles on monopoly regulation systems that were clearly needed). Many of these don't fit well into either Category:Market failure (basically a welfare-theoretic concept) or Category:Anti-competitive behaviour. Also, I think that by the time all relevant articles are included in Category:Market failure, it will be so large that a need for splitting into subcategories will become evident. I've added some glaring omissions such as Pigovian tax, Coase theorem and incomplete markets, but I'm sure there are plenty more JQ 22:00, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

In Need of Some Help
Would you please take a look at Comparison between U.S. states and countries nominal GDP if you have some time to. We need an update for 2005, but it has just been discovered that the figures even for 2004 may not be correct. Help would be appreciated. (Eddie 23:36, 13 July 2006 (UTC))


 * I think what's needed here is to use Purchasing Power Parity conversions. More on the discussion page. This reminds me that I should work on the PPP article which is not in very good shape JQ 20:55, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Smoking ban
Just a quick note to say thanks for your work and support getting the smoking ban article into decent shape. Nmg20 20:32, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks! I think only a few more changes are needed, and it will be better than before. JQ 22:16, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Namespace edit JQ 23:38, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

JEL codes as category names.
Hello John. The JEL codes have rather long names and I feel that thay do not fit in easily with the rest of Wikipedia's categories. Alan Liefting 09:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm working on shortening some of the longer category names, or splitting into simpler categories, and will try to do more on this. I think we need a systematic scheme, and that wasn't present in economics, which is why I went for the JEL classifications. JQ 11:25, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Julian Simon transmutation claim
Hi, thanks for the help. when I tried the link you gave it was broken, so I've replaced it with Simon's direct responses. Hope you like it:
 * Diamond and others] interpret statements by Simon in The Ultimate Resource (page 47), as suggesting that in the future it would be possible to produce "copper" by transmutation from other elements, a process currently too expensive, energy-intensive and slow to be feasible on the industrial scale. In fact Simon had orginally said not "copper" but "copper or its economic equivalent" (page 47, The Ultimate Resource) and later clarified this with the response "It takes much less copper now to pass a given message than a hundred years ago." (The Ultimate Resource 2, page 62, footnote)

--Michael C. Price talk 08:26, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This seems to get it pretty much right. Sorry for the broken link; it was to a rather weak source anyway. JQ 10:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Saturday Night Special
John, thanks for your edits at the Saturday Night Special article. From my standpoint, the only controversy surrounding this issue is the availability of the guns, but others have tried to paint this issue as one of keeping guns out of the hands of the poor and minority group members to oppress them. I was especially bothered by the idea that the term "Saturday Night Special" comes from "Niggertown Saturday Nights." The scholarship surrounding this idea is piss-poor, and it strikes me as a scurrulous attempt to taint laws regarding these guns as racist. Anyhow, I've been wrestling with other posters at this article for months, and I'm glad to see someone besides me step in. Thanks. Griot 18:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Glad to be of help on this one. If I could ask a favour in return, and you have some free time, you might want to edit the Congress of Racial Equality article and mention its pro-gun position, and also check "What links here" for other places where CORE and Roy Innis are quoted as if he represented anyone other than himself. JQ 21:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

"Notable Staff" section of University of Queensland
Hi John. An anonymous user suggested that you'd qualify as a "notable staff member" at UQ, so I've added you to that list. I'm not an economics man myself, so if there's anyone else in that school (or in the entirely of BEL, not sure how much intercommunication there is in that faculty) who would pass WP:PROF, feel free to stick them in. BigHaz 08:51, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks very much for this. I'll check on the criteria and make up a list. In the meantime it would be good to add UQ's Federation Fellows (about a dozen) to the "notable" list and maybe do an article on this scheme. One obvious person I've added is Ian Frazer. JQ 12:05, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Alternate economics and JEL
Hi, John. I had a look at the JEL classification that you referenced on your user page. Where might topics like:


 * Local and other alternative currencies
 * Gift economies
 * Time-based currency
 * Sabbath economics

and other non-mainstream economic topics fit, if at all? Waitak 04:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Good questions. Possible locations are Category:Heterodox economics for alternative schools of thought, and JEL: A14 - Sociology of Economics (no category created yet) for Gift economies. The currency related topics, I would put into Category:Currency, which is a subcategory of Category:Money and then of Category:Macroeconomics and monetary economics JQ 04:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've just created a stub for Sabbath economics, and placed it in Category:Alternative economy. Should Category:Alternative economy and Category:Heterodox economics be merged, or...? I wouldn't have thought to look at Category:Heterodox economics if you hadn't mentioned it here, I confess. Is that a standard term in economics?


 * Economic systems sidebar also seems relevant to the discussion. Waitak 04:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Heterodox economics is a standard term, used to describe schools of thought opposed to "orthodox" or mainstream economics. Both heterodox and orthodox schools are mostly concerned with analysing the existing capitalist/mixed economy. Descriptions of other economic systems that have existed in the past would mostly belong in Category:Economic systems or Category:Economic history. JQ 04:55, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You'd be more than welcome to reclassify Sabbath economics if you like! I'm a little unclear on what's best. Waitak 05:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Looking at the article,Category:Alternative economy is fine. JQ 03:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Eco eco cats
The problem I was originally trying to address was that no category existed that contained all of
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_biodiversity
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_economics

At the same time, environmental economics states that green economics and ecological economics are not subsets of env. econ., but rather, that each stands on its own; hence, the category could not be named after either of the four lemmata; this is how the name "economics of sustainability" arose - the commonality seems to be that all these fields deal with the question of sustainable exploitation. Bioeconomics would seem to be another candidate. - User:Samsara (talk • contribs) 10:54, 24 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think there's an easy answer here. Economics of sustainability is a subset of all of these except for biodiversity. It fits most naturally into environmental economics, but ecological and Green economics have there own takes on the subject. More generally, because these are somewhat different views of the same basic topic, there's not much to say except that they all beloing in economics JQ 12:50, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Equity Premium Puzzle
Your reversion on this page said "rv; to last version by John Quiggin, see discussion" but I didn't see you put anything in the discussion. I just did a quick scan of the old version - was there really nothing in the previous revision (eg. under "historical data") that was worth saving? Psychobabble 01:07, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I musn't have saved. Here's what I've put in discussion now "A change a while back replaced the entire article as it stood with an essay that was in fairly poor shape, and had attracted a cleanup notice. I took a quick look and decided that it would be better to go back to the previous version, then incorporate anything worthwhile from the new one. I'll try to tackle this before too long."JQ 01:49, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Stepwise regression
Some edits were made to this but I don't have the knowledge to say if they are correct or not. Perhaps you could have a look. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 17:25, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for pointing to this. The edits were an improvement, and I've added a little more JQ 20:28, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Intertemporal
Hi, thanks for doing so much work sorting out all the economics categories, one thing though, do you think Category:Intertemporal is a bit vague? might it be better called something like Category:Intertemporal economics? thanks Martin 12:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Agreed. This one was there when I started, but I've had the same thought as you, I'll propose a change JQ 20:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Hittman6's edit to Passive Smoking
He's a known vandal, if you haven't already give him a warning. He vandalized my userpage the other week - see this edit http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User%3ALordkazan&diff=73334857&oldid=73290862. Lordkazan 03:40, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I saw that just now, checking his contribs. I don't think his latest edit can be classed as vandalism, but if he tries anything like with your userpage again, I think we can get him blocked.JQ 03:53, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * His edit history is fairly clearly and attempt to pov-push Lordkazan 04:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * No doubt about that. I've reverted him several times already, and have yet to see a useful contribution from him. JQ 10:28, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * May be time to report him as a vandalism-only account? (oh btw nice cleanup and citation of some unsourced content i reverted earlier) Lordkazan 20:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Glad you liked the cleanup. As regards Hittman6, I think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie for now. His attack on your page was vandalism, but the rest of his edits don't meet the definition. They're badly written, unsourced or badly sourced and POV, but that's not vandalism. The best thing to do, I think, is just revert him until he either goes away or learns how Wikipedia is supposed to work. JQ 21:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Zizek
him simply being famous doesn't make him correct - the source for the part of it that IS sourced is not a reliable source, and the second half - where it is claimed he considers smoking ban proponents socially deficient was totally unsourced. Lordkazan 15:22, 2 October 2006 (UTC)


 * From my perspective, Zizek is mostly famous for being wrong, on this and other issues, but I still think the argument is worth mentioning or at least that, having been included (not by me), it shouldn't be deleted without good reason. I'm not sure what you mean about the source being unreliable. It's a directly recorded interview, and Henwood is a well-known journalist and commentator - I've reviewed a couple of his books. I agree that the second half is unsourced, and Google doesn't produce anything useful, so this should be deleted.JQ 20:40, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I am the person who removed the section on Zizek because at the time it had no reference and I felt it was tangential to the topic. I came online today to find a threat that I'll be banned for my edit - blanking as it was called. After doing some reading, I found that "blanking" is generally frowned upon, but that it is not considered vandalism if the person is attempting to improve the article. Given my posted rational for taking the section out, I think the threats to ban me were unwarranted and it doesn't seem much like the warm welcome I read about on many of the pages regarding new posters. My goal was to improve the article and I stated my rationale for this improvement in my edit. So I am not happy with the threat to be banned.

That said, I still believe that the section on zizek is misplaced and I want to put that suggestion out to be evaluated by the community. I am trying to understand the appropriate way to make an edit of this nature. If any one can help me out I would appreciate it. I don't even know if this is the right place to leave this question. Hopefully I won't get banned for it.


 * Sorry that things got off on the wrong foot here. You got reverted by automated bots, which generally work on the assumption that blanking is vandalism (which it often is). The other important thing you need to be aware of is WP:3RR, which says, in essence, that you shouldn't keep making the same change, until it has been discussed. My comment to this effect was a bit rushed and not as welcoming as it should have been. Anyway, I've added a welcome note to your new talk page.  As you can see, you are not alone in the view that the Zizek stuff should go, though maybe we should move this discussion to Talk:Smoking ban. Remember to sign contributions to discussion with four tildes.JQ 23:37, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the bot changed my deletion so quickly that I thought it didn't go through, so I changed it again. And so it looked like I was repeating myself. At any rate thanks for the welcome and for the tips. It looks like someone has already made both of the edits that I wanted to make in regards to Zizek and Hitler. At least I know how to work within the system a little better now. Thanks. Stangman2 02:34, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

John Brignell
John, I have to confess I am amazed. Yes, you have managed to find a new reference that says ETS. However, have you read the reference ? It makes no case whatsoever that that there is a significant correlation between ETS and anything. None of the tables show an association between ETS and anything. This reference doesn't justify your assertion in the Brignell article.

i am also bemused about why you quote JB's article on relative risk; it specifically says that rr>2 in combination with P<0.05 is the problem, and you cite this article to say something very different. Is this meant to be an encyclopedia, or just your POV ? Peroxisome 20:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I quote from Table 6 of the relevant article, which gives risk estimates "Adjusted for 5-year age group, province, smoking pack-years, variables for interaction of smoking status with age group, and total years of exposure to residential or occupational passive smoking." If you want to dispute the relationship between passive smoking and lung cancer, go to that article, and look at the evidence. The article I cite supports the statement that both direct and passive smoking are treated as confounding factors in studies of cancer risk. I couldn't follow your second point, I'm afraid. JQ 20:45, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear John, yes, they did adjust. What they didn't provide any evidence for was whether adjusting had any statistically significant effect. They could have adjusted for star sign as well; unless it has an effect, it is utterly irrelevant. And strangely enough, I would be surprised if they got a statistically significant effect (i.e. that their passive smoking measure correlates with anything) and they just forgot to mention it.

Oh, yes, and you also manage to bring in direct smoking. As you well know, direct smoking has a very large RR. So it has nothing to do with the issue of whether RR<2 is unreliable. It is known that direct smoking can be a confounder. It is known that direct smoking shows synergism with other effects. None of which you are showing for ETS, and RRs of <<2.

Your quote is, "Brignell applies this claim to dismiss studies ...". In fact, the cited reference says: "If reasonable levels of significance were observed (RR>2, P<0.01) ..." "1.     The absence of randomisation 2.      The one in twenty lottery 3.      The acceptance of low relative risks" it simply isn't possible to read that piece, and justify the claim that brignell dismisses solely on the basis of RR<2; his analysis is much more complex. Peroxisome 21:23, 4 October 2006 (UTC) one other thing; i note you refer me to pages that you have had a great say in editing, as if I have to accept your word when it is written down somewhere else. I don't think you know very much about epidemiology, and I am quite clear that you have cited references that do not support your claims. Maybe you would be better advised to think of this an an encyclopedia, where statements of fact must be justified by the correct reference. Peroxisome 21:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Per, this is silly. The conclusion that passive smoking causes cancer is well-established, and appropriate for an encyclopedia. It's therefore appropriate to refer to it in other articles. If you doubt it, find an established health authority that rejects (or even doubts) this conclusions, and include their position in passive smoking. As regards my word, you don't have to rely on that - check the references, which are numerous. Or, if you have new research on the topic, get it published.


 * On your other point, Brignell's statement indicates his main error - studies with estimated relative risk close to 1 are more likely to be wrong because the effects of errors such as inadequate randomisation, confounding factors, data grubbing and so forth are more likely to produce spurious findings with small effects. In addition, if the base risk is low to begin with, then an effect may be statistically significant but not significant in practice. The Ioannides paper gives good coverage of this. What Brignell does, wrongly, is to state this as a rule that only risks with RR>2 are real. He's wrong about passive smoking, and the article, as it stands, states this.

your reference does not show, or state, that ets is a confounder for anything; and that is the statement you make. You are flat out wrong, and you are advancing your POV in spite of the reference.

You state that brignell dismisses something on solely the basis of RR<2. The reference you cite directly contradicts that statement, by showing he dismisses the EPA study on multiple grounds. You are all POV. Peroxisome 22:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you...
... for your rational comments on Talk:Steven Milloy. Although I sometimes get the sense that Peroxisome is just engaged in garden-variety trolling, you're absolutely right that such input can actually improve the robustness of the article through the addition of more sources. MastCell 02:06, 8 October 2006 (UTC)


 * I echo this sentiment. You beat me to the last edit on Junkscience.Jance 02:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Foundations of Economic Analysis‎
Hi, Prof. Q. Thx for edit of the above. I'm surprised at the deletion of the Gen. Equil. category. That is not of course the sole subject, but it is a major subject in Foundations. As you know the relevant chapters or variants thereof appeared in Econometrica articles in the 1940s, cutting-edge in their day. Samuelson's treatment exemplifies well his method as applying from the smallest economic unit to aggregation of the whole economy. Fischer (1987, p. 237 referenced in the above) has 2 paragraphs on FEA under the Dynamics and General Equil. section. What say you?

On other subjects: BW, Thomasmeeks 17:42, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
 * Your Econ. Methodology article sure helped pull some classics together.
 * I'm happy you saw fit to pull the Stub from the designation Robbins's Essay (which I had included to entice Robbins enthusiasts).


 * Hi Thomas, glad you liked most of the edits. On GE, it was a judgement call, based on the view that modern GE really began with Arrow and Debreu a few years later, but feel free to put it back in if you want.JQ 20:44, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * OK. Not exactly a huge stockpile in that category as I recall.
 * I don't know how I overlooked it, but I think you would not object to restoring my Micro cat. on same grounds (Fischer, p. 235).

Thomasmeeks 21:21, 19 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The problem with the Micro cat is one of Wikipedia style which deprecates using both a high-level category and one or more subcategories of that category. So if you categorise the book under consumer theory and GE you shouldn't also categorise it under microeconomics. JQ 10:43, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Personal Taxes
I noticed you were changing some of the CATS on the the taxation articles. Thanks for cleaning up the CAT tree. Some articles that you moved to Personal Taxes such as "Income Tax", "Income Tax in the United States", "Consumption Tax", etc. could also be classified as Business Taxes as Businesses also pay such taxes on their Income and Consumption. I wasn't sure of your classification method but I thought I would mention it as it might be proper to also add them to that category. Morphh (talk) 13:39, 24 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for mentioning this problem, which I've been worrying about a bit. A lot of articles on income tax briefly mention the corporate income tax, but don't give any details. For the moment, I'm just putting them in "personal taxes". What might be better would be to have some subcategories allocating the main taxes to personal or business, with some explanation in the top-level article. JQ 20:49, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

Economics lists
(copy)

I don't think dumping all these categories back into Category:Economics is very helpful. It's already overcrowded with subcategories, and it's a big job keeping it under control. Could I ask you to reconsider this? JQ 05:49, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that a category being too large is an excuse to mis-categorize articles. Are you aware of Wikipedia's definition of "lists" - WP:LIST? If the subcategories are not related to lists, why put them under "Economics lists"? A valid subcategory of "Category:Economics lists" is "Category:Lists of people by wealth". A valid article in "Category:Economics lists" is "List of countries by external debt". But "Category:Economic theories" doesn't contain "lists" and wasn't even under "Category:Economics" - hardly helpful for users browsing economics topics.


 * There is an entire infrastructure of "list"-type articles starting with Category:Lists. It doesn't even seem up for debate to me - it's just a straightforward application of definitions. Nevertheless, I refrained from changing all of them in case any such queries came up. Would you like to get other opinions? – Outriggr § 06:14, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I take your point, but these are more or less arbitrary collections of items that seem like lists to me and don't really fit anywhere else. JQ 12:37, 7 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I've moved them back into category economics, putting them in economic lists is totally incomprehensible, and makes navigating the category system very difficult even for an experienced user (i.e. me). There are now 40 sub categories and 10 articles in the economics category, this is a perfectly acceptable level. Martin 20:05, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

+cat
Hello, would you please remove the Category:Accountancy from the articles you added it to, the articles are already in sub-categories. Thank you Octopus-Hands 10:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)


 * All I did was remove Category:Economics for the same reason you cite - someone else added all these top-level categories earlier on. I try and keep Category:Economics diffused, which takes a fair bit of time. It would be great if you wanted to do the same for Category:Accountancy JQ 12:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

When Johhny Comes Marching Home
Why did you revert (and mark it "vandalism") the line "And we'll all feel gay" from the song When Johnny Comes Marching Home? That is the actual text of the song - please consult the following link:

http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/johnny.htm


 * Oops! Sorry about that. JQ 02:39, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

American Legislative Exchange Council
I am by no means attempting to engage in any sort of vandalism with regards to this article. Rather, I am simply trying to remove erroneous, biased, and sometimes downright untrue claims about this organization. If my revisions are unacceptable in some way, then perhaps a compromise can be reached. However, simply reverting back to the original flawed text is not a solution. --136.242.131.144 22:54, 29 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Large-scale deletions are a bad idea. If there are points to which you object, the best starting point is to raise your objections on the talk page before making changes. Looking at the particular case, you deleted, without any explanation, the factual information that ALEC is a member of the Cooler Heads Coalition. Perhaps some of the changes you made were justified, but this certainly wasn't, and in the absence of any discussion from you, I reverted the lot. Also, if you are planning on contributing more, it might be a good idea to create a user account. JQ 01:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Edward R. Dewey article
Thank you for joining the discussion on the Edward R. Dewey article. I am trying to remove unjustified references to "Much of Dewey's work made claims about Business cycles. This subject has been hotly debated;" and a reference to Ball's book. I don't know if you are familiar with Dewey's work? He studied cycles in everything he could, hundreds of different things. He was a careful man and took good advice from statisticians and physicists so that he did not make wrong claims. As I mention on the talk page the volume of cycles refernces has no mention of "business cycles" at all. Therefore this claim is unjustified. Likewise, Ball makes no mention of Dewey in his book and so it does not belong in the article. I have no objection to anyone putting criticism of Dewey that is relevant. Even the stuff of Murray Rothbard is extremely poorly thought out and the guy clearly does not understand anything about dynamics of sytems and I would like to see it gone. Can you tell me what is the general opinion of Rothbard? Ray Tomes 01:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Since Dewey was an economist, and started working on the Depression, the claim seems entirely reasonable, even if he ended up being concerned with cycles of all kinds. I think the general problem with this article is that Dewey's claims have not achieved singificant acceptance, or even reached the level where his analysis has received extensive critical attention. One solution would be to delete the article altogether - this was proposed but rejected. The alternative is to cite criticism of claims about cycle theories of the general kind Dewey made, even if specific reference to Dewey's work is limited or non-existent. As regards Rothbard, he is well-regarded in the Austrian school which is a minority school. Certainly, he is taken far more seriously by mainstream economists than Dewey.JQ 05:10, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the info. Dewey is or was well known in some circles, but he largely abandoned economics in favour of cycles research and studied cycles in every discipline. Therefore you should not expect to find information on him just from economists but from other cycles researchers. Here is a list of people that accepted his offer to be on the FSC board at various times ..         (mostly PhDs) Maurice Allais (Nobel prize for economics) Sir Julian Huxley (Zoological Society of London) Rhodes Fairbridge (Climatology, Columbia University) John T Burns (Chronobiology, Bethany College) Sallie Baliunas (Astronomy) Howard G Tucker (Statistics, University of California, Irvine) Charles S Elton (Oxford University) Louis M Thomson (Agronomoy, Iowa State University) Ellsworth Huntington (Yale University) Charles Dales Dawes (30th Vice-persident of US) Lt Com David Williams (USNR, retired) Arne Sollberger (Chronobiology, Southern Illinois University) Robert T Pretcher (Elliott wave theorist) L A (Pat) Hyland (Chairman Emiritus, Hughes Aircraft Corp) Charles Gresley Abbott (Smithsonian Institution) ... I hope that you would agree that these are not lightweights and that such a large number of distinguished people would not accept association with someone who was not equally eminent. I have one request of you ... please read the article [] which is a summary of Dewey's findings written in the middle of his career. This is only the tip of the iceberg, but to an intelligent and thoughtful person (and I can see that you are one from reading a number of your articles from your web site) it should be possible to get some idea of the enormity of what this man achieved. It is a fact that much of what he suspected has been confirmed decades later by discoveries from space weather and other modern technological marvels. Remember he did much of his analysis without the aid of computers. If you find the article of interest then I would very much like to work together to present Dewey's work more fully and put it in its correct historical perspective. regards Ray Tomes 07:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Autoblock
Small world. Tim Lambert was my computer graphic's lecturer at UNSW. --  Netsnipe  ►  02:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Netsnipe. Small world indeed! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by John Quiggin (talk • contribs) 02:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC).