Re: News Coverage and bad economics
In a message dated 1/8/03 4:51:38 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Mises said that everyone must learn economics because public policy is set by public opinion. It's an unrealistic demand, but it might be warranted, absent the death of democracy. My old economics mentor at University of Colorado used to say that anyone who couldn't compute compound interest shouldn't be able to vote. Amen. David Levenstam
Re: News Coverage and bad economics
Fred Foldvary a *crit : one is a better economist if one knows some law, history, geography, literature, political science, and philosophy. And besides his specialty, a good economist should know some history of thought, economic history, and something about the various schools of thought besides his own. True, but what do students in economics study all that? Too much maths usually divert students from all these topics : they just don't need all these to pass their exams. begin:vcard n:Girard;Bernard tel;work:0145446914 x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.BernardGirard.com adr:;; version:2.1 email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED] x-mozilla-cpt:;1 fn:Bernard Girard end:vcard
RE: News Coverage and bad economics
Amateurs and economics? As I recall, in the General Theory, towards the end of the book, Keynes called for, or came close to calling for, nationalization of business investment. If implemented, the proposal would have quickly created an out-and-out socialist system, with disastrous consequences. Fortunately, such a decision was not in the hands of Keynes or other economists. It was in the hands of the American electorate, a bunch of amateurs. And among these amateurs, only about 2% had historically supported socialist candidates who called for what Keynes was proposing. The amateurs were right, and Keynes was wrong. Now, one can dismiss this evidence as a mere anecdote. But keep in mind that we are talking about the man who was the most acclaimed economist of the 20th century, and we are considering his position on nothing less than capitalism vs. socialism, the most important and fundamental issue in economics and perhaps all of social science. In fact, amateurs and the general public have often demonstrated a kind of intuitive and inarticulate wisdom on social issues that has eluded intellectuals, including economists. Marc Poitras
Re: News Coverage and bad economics
If you already know the correct answers better than the professor why are you taking the class instead of teaching it? JC -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, January 09, 2003 7:41 AM Subject: Re: News Coverage and bad economics Yes, indeed I was informed recently that I recieved an A- instead of an A in one of my PhD courses because I include too much historical content in my exam answers. I suppose there's no better way to protect faulty theory than to ignore the lessons of economic history. In a message dated 1/9/03 7:00:41 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fred Foldvary a *crit : one is a better economist if one knows some law, history, geography, literature, political science, and philosophy. And besides his specialty, a good economist should know some history of thought, economic history, and something about the various schools of thought besides his own. True, but what do students in economics study all that? Too much maths usually divert students from all these topics : they just don't need all these to pass their exams. begin:vcard n:Girard;Bernard
Re: FW: History shows paths to market crashes
--- Bryan D Caplan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: (Incidentally, 7% sounds low relative to other averages I've heard. Burton Malkiel cites a figure of 10% real pre-tax if I recall correctly). Roger Clarke and Meir Statman, Winter 2000, The DJIA Crossed 652,230, Journal of Portfolio Management, have a table of DJIA: capital, wealth, real capital, real wealth, and after taxes, and for Wealth DJIA (including dividends) they put the geometric mean annual growth at 9.89%, 1896 to 1998, and for real wealth DJIA for those years they have 6.69%. For the SP, they have real wealth at 7.76%, wealth at 11%. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: News Coverage and bad economics
Hilarious! I'd already killfiled AdmrlLocke, so I hadn't read his first message. Love your answer though. On Thu, 9 Jan 2003, John-Charles Bradbury wrote: If you already know the correct answers better than the professor why are you taking the class instead of teaching it? JC -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Thursday, January 09, 2003 7:41 AM Subject: Re: News Coverage and bad economics Yes, indeed I was informed recently that I recieved an A- instead of an A in one of my PhD courses because I include too much historical content in my exam answers. I suppose there's no better way to protect faulty theory than to ignore the lessons of economic history. In a message dated 1/9/03 7:00:41 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Fred Foldvary a *crit : one is a better economist if one knows some law, history, geography, literature, political science, and philosophy. And besides his specialty, a good economist should know some history of thought, economic history, and something about the various schools of thought besides his own. True, but what do students in economics study all that? Too much maths usually divert students from all these topics : they just don't need all these to pass their exams. begin:vcard n:Girard;Bernard
