The Short Run Mission Statement:

"...this 'long run' is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead."

     One of the beliefs of the neoclassical economists was that the economy operated in logical time. Logical time has no direction: it can run backward as easily as forward. When supply forces meet demand forces to determine equilibrium price it is as if time does not exist at all. Most of the conceptual devices of neoclassical economics do not exist in real time. Logical time has no turning points or deadlines. But when an economist says excess unemployment will disappear in the long run, how long is that? And what other changes will occur that require further adjustment before we ever arrive at 'the long run'?

     Keynes recognized that we move from one short run to another and that real economic problems must be solved in real time -- before the next election or before mass unemployment threatens the continuity of economic institutions central to capitalism or political institutions central to democracy.  Thus, Keynes noted:

This long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.

     And so this is why we are the Short Run: we operate in real time.

And after all we are all dead...in the long run that is.

The Short Run Creators:

• Richard Carew
• Daniel Hicks
• Roger Kuo
• Alex Rothenberg

Financial Analyst:

• Anoop Dave

• Les Schreiber
• Lis Turner
• Bob Graboyes
• Kelly Bryan (editing / review contribution)

We would like to extend special thanks to Mr. Les Schreiber. He has been invaluable in our studies and contributed to our development in ways that extend far beyond economics. Thank you Mr. Schreiber.

On his request, a picture of his dogs, Clyde & Mr. Duff is posted here.



 

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