Quoting "James A. Donald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> --
> At 08:28 PM 4/18/2001 -0400, Faustine wrote:
> >True, but my point was that the 'Samuelson technical stuff' has its
> place.
>
> All that technical stuff is in the Friedman's books,
I still think the quickest way to get a firm technical grasp of micro and macro
economics is to sit down and work through problems for yourself with textbooks
like Samuelson's and Krugman's, respectively.
Personally, I started with Rand at 15 and worked my way through a lot of the
whole damn Laissez Faire book catalog before I ever got around to the purely
analytic stuff. I really do think it would have been easier for me to get the
technical basics by working through problems for myself first. My basic error
was that I was so swept up in the social and political ramifications of these
works, my own personal analytic rigor took something of a back seat. And, being
so convinced of the fundamental 'rightness' of my free market heroes, I could
hardly even see it.
If you don't have the ability to analyze and critique any work 'from it's
underbelly', so to speak, you're basically stuck taking someone else's word
about their conclusions-- and in no position to debate issues with people who
made hardcore analysis part of their intellectual toolkit. And frankly, that's
a shitty place I don't want to be.
When it comes down to a question of partisans and ideologues versus analysts
and scientists, I think we all know where to put our money.
So if the people we look up to take this approach, why shouldn't we?
> and where there was a
> conflict between sound economics, and the politically correct fashions
> of the day, Samuelson tended to cringe before whatever was PC fashion,
> until the fashion changed and he could get away with more accurate and
> realistic economics.
I'm not out to say what a great guy he is, only that his technical
introductory 'econ 101' textbook was helpful to me. Though now that I think
about it, his 1958 volume on linear programming might be of interest to anyone
interested in the turnpike conjecture of linear von Neumann systems.
> Most infamously, when many observers noticed that the Soviet Union was
> imminent danger of collapse, he assured us the Soviet economy was
> working just fine.
Join the club on that one, heh. Though I do know of one senior analyst who said
that CIA's economic over-estimates were actually a good thing in the long run,
in that it led to the Reagan defense build-up, which in turn put us in a
stronger negotiating position, which forced them into Glasnost, and thereby for
a quicker demise for the whole system than if we'd got our economics straight
in the first place. Have to find the spin wherever you can, I guess!
~Faustine.
p.s. if any of you haven't already seen the Laissez Faire book catalogue, it's
http://www.laissezfairebooks.com/. Get Tim's books there, heh.
****
'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and
reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).
