Krugman Article In Nyt

[Potomophobia 17]

You guys should show more respect to Nobel Prize winners. Yasser Arafat won one ya know...

Yes. And so did the clowns who created Long Term Capital Management.I'm tired of hearing from and about Economists. They are all charlatans. Economics is a Social Science. In school, economists have to learn some basic math. In school, they also learn that under very specific, controlled classroom examples, some of their simple math gives the answers that the professor wanted to demonstrate. They regurgitate the simple math and come to the correct solutions on exams that are designed to reinforce whatever pap the professor is preaching at the time. They get good grades. They think they are smart. Along the way they hear of something called Pure Science.They see the results of Pure Science. They see what Physics, Chemistry and Engineering can do. They recognize some small part of the math involved in these Sciences and say to themselves...... HEY! I'm a smart guy! I got good grades using math just like those guys. I can turn a Social Science into a Pure Science. I'll create a "Theory of Everything" for what people will do. I will come up with a mathematical formula that will accurately predict all human behavior.They are arrogant and pompous fools. They have all been proven wrong.Yet they keep on bloviating.And people still listen to them.

[ahosang 0]

Yes. And so did the clowns who created Long Term Capital Management.I'm tired of hearing from and about Economists. They are all charlatans. Economics is a Social Science. In school, economists have to learn some basic math. In school, they also learn that under very specific, controlled classroom examples, some of their simple math gives the answers that the professor wanted to demonstrate. They regurgitate the simple math and come to the correct solutions on exams that are designed to reinforce whatever pap the professor is preaching at the time. They get good grades. They think they are smart. Along the way they hear of something called Pure Science.They see the results of Pure Science. They see what Physics, Chemistry and Engineering can do. They recognize some small part of the math involved in these Sciences and say to themselves...... HEY! I'm a smart guy! I got good grades using math just like those guys. I can turn a Social Science into a Pure Science. I'll create a "Theory of Everything" for what people will do. I will come up with a mathematical formula that will accurately predict all human behavior.They are arrogant and pompous fools. They have all been proven wrong.Yet they keep on bloviating.And people still listen to them.

Yes, I studied Mathematics single honours at university. Like you said, econ students had to do some maths modules, and cried like babies about how hard it was. I did a module called 'Financial Mathematics' which many Econ students also took. Someone from Goldman SachsMerrill Lynch took 1 semester to go through derivation of Black-Scholes(and variants) and all these fancy variables like drift, volatility, yawn , yawn... Totally agree with you. Economists gain some knowledge of pure maths and then 'feel the power coursing through their veins'. Mathematical modelling and playing with maths makes them think they are some Galileo, Newton or Faraday. Like yourself, I've always had disdain for these people.

[checkymcfold 0]

One of the best compliments I've received. One of the reasons I like arguing here is all the smart people who teach me all sorts of stuff. And BTW, I guess checky is anti-intellectual, because he didn't immediately respond to every line of my post.

checky is actively seeking to destroy himself through playing the WCOOP, which might explain why he is absent right now.But he is not anti-intellectual as long as the intellect in question is decidedly left of center.

BG is right. i was busy with wcoop and then i was out of town all weekend. i'll respond to most of your points directly sometime soon, but for now, i should say that i still don't think that you're addressing the main point of krugman's article, which isn't that humans are always rational, but rather that most free-marketeers are forced, eventually, to make the assumption that markets act rationally, and that market downswings must thus be seen as either desirable or in his words, "rational." you're pigeonholing him when you say that he's mistaking short-term events for long-term ones, too. his point is that the short-term effects of market volatility affect actual human beings in ways that are far from desirable (robert reich's 2007 supercapitalism makes this same point, but better, imo), and that if you understand that the point of economics is to make people not-life-busto, then short-term consequences of economic policy (or lack thereof) that can last years can be on balance just as bad as their long-term counterparts.as to anti-intellectualism, my point isn't one of timing or political slant, but rather concerning the blind dismissal of people that have more economic training than all of us combined without actually reading what it is you're dismissing. you don't have to agree with everything a nobel prize winner says, but if you don't take his/her arguments seriously on some level, you're not allowing any sort of conversation to progress in even a semi-thoughtful way. saying merely that "krugman is a tool," etc., isn't going to make anyone more knowledgeable about anything, except perhaps how to argue like a child. your longer post that addresses what he's actually saying is a lot more helpful, even if i do think that a sizable part of it misses where he's going with the article.more generally, the point isn't "to win," but instead to illustrate that people can actually argue like adults, or even (gasp!) academics, on the internets.

[brvheart 1,752]

I, for one, think Krugman is a tool.

[Balloon guy 158]

I, for one, think Krugman is a tool.

I am getting tired of my right wing borther judging a man just because everything he writes thinks or says is completely leftist propaganda without a shred of intelligent thought put into it.Cut the guy some slack...they don't just give Nobel prizes to anyone.

[hblask 1]

BG is right. i was busy with wcoop and then i was out of town all weekend. i'll respond to most of your points directly sometime soon, but for now, i should say that i still don't think that you're addressing the main point of krugman's article, which isn't that humans are always rational, but rather that most free-marketeers are forced, eventually, to make the assumption that markets act rationally, and that market downswings must thus be seen as either desirable or in his words, "rational."

This is his primary strawman, but I see no reason why this should be true under free markets. All that free markets demand is that, given the right to trade freely, people will make decisions that they believe is in their best interest. I have never seen any free market economists argue that all people must behave rationally at all times, or that there even is a meaningful definition of rational that can be applied scientifically. In fact, the notion of market movements as "desirable" is flawed, they are what they are.For example, is it rational to smoke?

you're pigeonholing him when you say that he's mistaking short-term events for long-term ones, too. his point is that the short-term effects of market volatility affect actual human beings in ways that are far from desirable (robert reich's 2007 supercapitalism makes this same point, but better, imo), and that if you understand that the point of economics is to make people not-life-busto, then short-term consequences of economic policy (or lack thereof) that can last years can be on balance just as bad as their long-term counterparts.

Each person balances short term and long term needs in ways that reflect their own values. Economists cannot predict what that balance will be a priori. That doesn't make it some irrational harmful system, just one that is unpredictable.

as to anti-intellectualism, my point isn't one of timing or political slant, but rather concerning the blind dismissal of people that have more economic training than all of us combined without actually reading what it is you're dismissing. you don't have to agree with everything a nobel prize winner says, but if you don't take his/her arguments seriously on some level, you're not allowing any sort of conversation to progress in even a semi-thoughtful way. saying merely that "krugman is a tool," etc., isn't going to make anyone more knowledgeable about anything, except perhaps how to argue like a child. your longer post that addresses what he's actually saying is a lot more helpful, even if i do think that a sizable part of it misses where he's going with the article.more generally, the point isn't "to win," but instead to illustrate that people can actually argue like adults, or even (gasp!) academics, on the internets.

But as we pointed out, if after a couple pages, he's still wrong on everything, including his central thesis, do we really need the details? After all, what did my analysis show that wasn't in our initial responses?

[Potomophobia 17]

I am getting tired of my right wing borther judging a man just because everything he writes thinks or says is completely leftist propaganda without a shred of intelligent thought put into it.Cut the guy some slack...they don't just give Nobel prizes to anyone.

As always..... BG is the funniest poster on the forum.Long may you rule!

[Nimue1995 1]

I am getting tired of my right wing borther judging a man just because everything he writes thinks or says is completely leftist propaganda without a shred of intelligent thought put into it.Cut the guy some slack...they don't just give Nobel prizes to anyone.

Trust BG to come up with a brand new description of Brvheart,lol. I assume it's a combo between bore and bother. Makes perfect sense to me . (jk Brvheart but couldn't resist)

[hblask 1]

i'll respond to most of your points directly sometime soon,

BTW, I was kidding about expecting you to answer every point.... there's no reason to do that.