Mankiw's students want reality with their economics

[DontMissTheBus]

I agree with a lot of what you say; My problem is that austrian economics lack a adhesion to the scientific method (specifically, lack of falsifiable theories). So even if it turns out to have right observations, it's unfit as a discipline (much like most of psychology and other weaker social sciences).

I probably shouldn't make it sound like I object to austrian economics with the same confidence level as my objection to marxism.

Quote from MKTrader:

Except the Austrians were spot-on about the housing bubble/financial crisis while the mainstream economists had no clue. Remember Bernanke saying the worst of sub-prime was over in mid-2007? What a joke.

It's too bad economists turned into wannabe physicists around the time of Keynes. Their "empirical work" has little to no use in the real world, but they love to hide behind it. And of course, the quantitative esoterica allows them to do question-begging "analysis" where the desired outcome is reached.

This should have stopped in the 70s when something that never was supposed to happen (stagflation) did in fact happen. However, it didn't stop them, and it got so bad that Krugman actually said "Alan Greenspan needs to create a housing bubble to replace the Nasdaq bubble" in 2003.

 

[budcampbell]

Quote from logic_man:

Having seen, up close, what "helping the poor" leads to, I am not impressed.

Seems to me like Western civilization was in a definite uptrend from Greco-Roman times until "helping the poor" became an obsession among a certain class of pseudo-intellectuals. Since then, in Elliott Wave terms, the West is definitely in a "wave 2" down.

The scam had to be operated under the guise of "helping the poor". Many educated parasites and sycophants have profited nicely from the victim mentality inherent in the US today.

 

[joneog]

Quote from DontMissTheBus:

I agree with a lot of what you say; My problem is that austrian economics lack a adhesion to the scientific method (specifically, lack of falsifiable theories). So even if it turns out to have right observations, it's unfit as a discipline (much like most of psychology and other weaker social sciences).

I probably shouldn't make it sound like I object to austrian economics with the same confidence level as my objection to marxism.

The problem is it's very hard to study economic phenomena empirically, usually its just confusing correlation and causation; too many uncontrollable variables in the real world. For instance, the stimulus: you would have to create two parallel universes - one with, one without stimulus - to scientifically determine if it was effective. Otherwise its just a battle of theories, models etc.

Of course in economics, even when the evidence contradicts the theory, they either dispute the evidence or side-step it with a modified, but fundamentally similar, theory. Economic theories tend to be linked with and follow from certain political dogma, rather than the facts.

 

[logic_man]

Quote from oldtime:

great, so we agree, econ 101 should cover the theory of creating wealth to help your friends and animals

It's good to see you've progressed from saying that Econ 101 should be about "helping the poor". Unless "the poor" happen to be your friends, in which case, knock your socks off, just leave me out of it.

 

[logic_man]

Quote from joneog:



Of course in economics, even when the evidence contradicts the theory, they either dispute the evidence or side-step it with a modified, but fundamentally similar, theory. Economic theories tend to be linked with and follow from certain political dogma, rather than the facts.

Exhibit A being Krugman's argument that if only the stimulus was a trillion dollars, it would have worked.

I always get a kick out of Communists arguing that something (communal ownership of the means of production) which has never worked even in such fertile ground as the Israeli kibbutz system, should be implemented globally. These people don't, and probably never will, live in reality.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from logic_man:

It's good to see you've progressed from saying that Econ 101 should be about "helping the poor". Unless "the poor" happen to be your friends, in which case, knock your socks off, just leave me out of it.

yes, I am a friend of the poor

and any friend of mine is a friend of yours

 

[logic_man]

Quote from oldtime:



and any friend of mine is a friend of yours

See, that's where you're wrong. I wouldn't piss on your or your friend(s) if you were on fire. The amount of indifference I can summon up with regard to people I don't know is truly staggering. The only use I can really think of for them is to take the other side of my trade.

 

[Mav88]

yes, I am a friend of the poor

and any friend of mine is a friend of yours

Too bad this thread is reduced to such triteness. Everyone should have the the right to say who their friends are and who gets their charity. It is rudely presumptious to butt into people's business like that.

Back to topic, economics is hopelessly in bed with politics and that's how the public wants it to be. I think there actually could be some sort of attempt at objectivity and maybe somewhere people are laboring in obscurity, but personal politics is just too powerful.

It isn't a science until economists take the first step and stop pretending that fantasies like market equilibrium and microeconomic laws actually exist.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from Mav88:

Too bad this thread is reduced to such triteness. Everyone should have the the right to say who their friends are and who gets their charity. It is rudely presumptious to butt into people's business like that.

Back to topic, economics is hopelessly in bed with politics and that's how the public wants it to be. I think there actually could be some sort of attempt at objectivity and maybe somewhere people are laboring in obscurity, but personal politics is just too powerful.

It isn't a science until economists take the first step and stop pretending that fantasies like market equilibrium and microeconomic laws actually exist.

sorry "dude" logic and I were kind of having a conversation and you kind of butted in. But that's cool, I don't think butting in is rudely presumptious, it's a public forum.

 

[jem]

you can't blame economics for being polluted by krugman and politics.
all of academia including science has been polluted by politics and money as well.

Look at "climate" science. all sorts of theories are called facts.
Look who won a nobel peace prize.
All levels of society have pulled loose from their moorings.

Look at the daily parade of bullshiters on cnbc.
Look at Corzine. Someone mentioned he was known to lose hundreds of millions trading at Goldman. How the heck does a loser like that get to be head of goldman and then a senator who nearly bankrupted N.J.


Society has turned to marketing and spin instead of integrity and truth.