Once more the economics profession disgraces itself

DANIEL.DAVIES at flemings.com DANIEL.DAVIES at flemings.com
Fri Dec 10 09:43:27 PST 1999



>Daniel, you don't take those idiots more seriously, than, say islamic
>clerics waging a holy war against the "west, do you? Their sole role is
to
>act Rush Limbaugh - babbling nonsense with one and only one goal in mind -
>smearing the "bleeding heart liberals" by any means necessary.

The trouble is there are loads of mainstream liberal economists who "prove" equally annoying left-wing things in the same manner. Personally, I only take economics seriously when it deals with money.
>


>I stopped considering economics a science long time ago. At its best it
is
>metaphysics, a relatively coherent system of beliefs how things ought to
be
>according to the tenets of the rat-choice creed, but telling little how
>empirical world actually works. More often, however, it is a jihad
against
>political enemies of the ruling elites waged by a bunch of half-witted
>sycophantic journalists and pundits who do not know, or pretend not to
>know, what they are babbling about and claiming that market-schmarket will
>perform social miracles - even in the areas where its more knowledgeable
>adocates see a potential for an almost certain market failure (e.g. public
>goods or high infromation asymmetry).


>wojtek

Agreed. Though in the case of information asymmetry, you're these days almost bound to get some dumbass with a Californian PhD (don't know why, but it almost always is) coming up with a game-theory or signalling theory explanation. "Finding economic explanations for obviously non-economic phenomena" is the new cottage industry after "Finding game-theoretic proofs of economic things that nobody had been disposed to doubt"

Oh yeh, and anyone using a simple OLS model to prove anything is, IMO, doing something shameful, which they should not wave about in public.

I'm unsubbing for a week -- not in protest at anything, but because the new policy is to have mandatory auto-replies when out of office, and I doubt that everyone wants to hear how to contact my secretary 50 times a day.

cheers

dd

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