Krugman puts ANOTHER nail into the coffin of crank economists

[Dot Com]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

 

[CrusaderFrank]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

 

[Dot Com]

That "tongue in cheek" remark, that he made years ago BTW, is all you crank, shade tree, economists have? :yawn:

 

[oldfart]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

We get a lot on this board also. I learned my basic economics back in the 60's when I would guess there was a consensus among about 85% of economists regarding how the economy worked. Most of the remainder were in finance and we always regarded "business economists" as a different breed. These were the guys who came up with the "efficient markets" hypothesis and bled over into insisting on micro foundations for macro analysis which is probably the greatest intellectual disaster in economic thought since Galbraith's "countervailing power" schtick.

As I have been out of teaching and into private business for the last thirty years and don't try to publish much or attend AEA conventions like I used to, I got pretty well out of touch. What changed seems to be a trifercation of the profession into three schools. First are the successors of the "business economists". They really don't spend much time on macro except as it directly effects corporate finance. They unabashedly favor deregulation, immigration reform, tax loopholes, and government subsidies; all for their industry. This puts them generally in agreement with conservative thinkers, except they make a lot of pragmatic exceptions, like immigration reform.

Another group is essentially right-wing ideologues, which I thought had almost died out. This group has come back with a vengeance, and doesn't necessarily get along with the business types. They don't pretend to do any economic analysis or research, and are better understood as dealing in political economy rather than economics. There is literally no coherent economic theory that comes from this group. They aren't Keynesians, or monetarists, or even Austrians in the original sense (Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Menger, etc). They are the Luddites of the economics profession, seeing no need to have models or predictions at all.

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics", by which he means the creation of predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis. If the predict well, they are good models; if not, they need to be improved or abandoned. What shocks me is that while the vast majority of the profession could have been identified with this 35 years ago, they are a bare majority now; and even the journals seem to have drifted away from scientific method into some obscure OCD with mathematical elegance (and this coming from a mathematical economist!) and theoretical microfoundations purity.

If this is where we are headed it is going to be a bumpy road.

 

[Dot Com]

^ THATS how you reply to an OP!!!

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics",

and he would know better than anyone!! His experience and very elegant libcommie "models" helped him predict how great VA medical care would be!!

“Crucially, the V.H.A. is an integrated system, which provides health care as well as paying for it,” Krugman wrote. “So it’s free from the "perverse incentives" created when doctors and hospitals profit from expensive tests and procedures, whether or not those procedures actually make medical sense.”

 

[bripat9643]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

"A more nuanced view" means incorporating large amounts of Marxism in your economic theories.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

"A more nuanced view" means incorporating large amounts of Marxism in your economic theories.

ah but they are not theories they are "predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis."

I guess what he means is predictive models based on Marxist assumptions that always seem to predict the superiority of Marxist theories!

 

[bripat9643]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

"A more nuanced view" means incorporating large amounts of Marxism in your economic theories.

ah but they are not theories they are "predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis."

I guess what he means is predictive models based on Marxist assumptions that always seem to predict the superiority of Marxist theories!

"Predictive models base on historical evidence, data analysis and natural experiments" is another way to say "quackery" or "pure moonshine." You can't demonstrate the validity of economic theorems by using historical data. There's no way to isolate the independent variables. That statement alone is sufficient to demonstrate that Krugman is a quack.

 

[Dot Com]

Are there ANY crank (AKA-"Austrian") economists who are taken seriously? ANY?

 

[Toro]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

We get a lot on this board also. I learned my basic economics back in the 60's when I would guess there was a consensus among about 85% of economists regarding how the economy worked. Most of the remainder were in finance and we always regarded "business economists" as a different breed. These were the guys who came up with the "efficient markets" hypothesis and bled over into insisting on micro foundations for macro analysis which is probably the greatest intellectual disaster in economic thought since Galbraith's "countervailing power" schtick.

As I have been out of teaching and into private business for the last thirty years and don't try to publish much or attend AEA conventions like I used to, I got pretty well out of touch. What changed seems to be a trifercation of the profession into three schools. First are the successors of the "business economists". They really don't spend much time on macro except as it directly effects corporate finance. They unabashedly favor deregulation, immigration reform, tax loopholes, and government subsidies; all for their industry. This puts them generally in agreement with conservative thinkers, except they make a lot of pragmatic exceptions, like immigration reform.

Another group is essentially right-wing ideologues, which I thought had almost died out. This group has come back with a vengeance, and doesn't necessarily get along with the business types. They don't pretend to do any economic analysis or research, and are better understood as dealing in political economy rather than economics. There is literally no coherent economic theory that comes from this group. They aren't Keynesians, or monetarists, or even Austrians in the original sense (Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Menger, etc). They are the Luddites of the economics profession, seeing no need to have models or predictions at all.

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics", by which he means the creation of predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis. If the predict well, they are good models; if not, they need to be improved or abandoned. What shocks me is that while the vast majority of the profession could have been identified with this 35 years ago, they are a bare majority now; and even the journals seem to have drifted away from scientific method into some obscure OCD with mathematical elegance (and this coming from a mathematical economist!) and theoretical microfoundations purity.

If this is where we are headed it is going to be a bumpy road.

I have an undergraduate degree in economics and have spent nearly 20 years in the investment business. I mean no offense, but I've come to the conclusion that economists are mostly useless in my profession. There are a few decent ones, but when they needed to matter the most - 2000, 2006 - their failure was so complete that it's hard to take the profession seriously.

That's probably an unfair generalization, but that's my observation.

 

[bripat9643]

Are there ANY crank (AKA-"Austrian") economists who are taken seriously? ANY?

They all are, numskull.

 

[bripat9643]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

We get a lot on this board also. I learned my basic economics back in the 60's when I would guess there was a consensus among about 85% of economists regarding how the economy worked. Most of the remainder were in finance and we always regarded "business economists" as a different breed. These were the guys who came up with the "efficient markets" hypothesis and bled over into insisting on micro foundations for macro analysis which is probably the greatest intellectual disaster in economic thought since Galbraith's "countervailing power" schtick.

As I have been out of teaching and into private business for the last thirty years and don't try to publish much or attend AEA conventions like I used to, I got pretty well out of touch. What changed seems to be a trifercation of the profession into three schools. First are the successors of the "business economists". They really don't spend much time on macro except as it directly effects corporate finance. They unabashedly favor deregulation, immigration reform, tax loopholes, and government subsidies; all for their industry. This puts them generally in agreement with conservative thinkers, except they make a lot of pragmatic exceptions, like immigration reform.

Another group is essentially right-wing ideologues, which I thought had almost died out. This group has come back with a vengeance, and doesn't necessarily get along with the business types. They don't pretend to do any economic analysis or research, and are better understood as dealing in political economy rather than economics. There is literally no coherent economic theory that comes from this group. They aren't Keynesians, or monetarists, or even Austrians in the original sense (Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Menger, etc). They are the Luddites of the economics profession, seeing no need to have models or predictions at all.

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics", by which he means the creation of predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis. If the predict well, they are good models; if not, they need to be improved or abandoned. What shocks me is that while the vast majority of the profession could have been identified with this 35 years ago, they are a bare majority now; and even the journals seem to have drifted away from scientific method into some obscure OCD with mathematical elegance (and this coming from a mathematical economist!) and theoretical microfoundations purity.

If this is where we are headed it is going to be a bumpy road.

I have an undergraduate degree in economics and have spent nearly 20 years in the investment business. I mean no offense, but I've come to the conclusion that economists are mostly useless in my profession. There are a few decent ones, but when they needed to matter the most - 2000, 2006 - their failure was so complete that it's hard to take the profession seriously.

That's probably an unfair generalization, but that's my observation.

I wouldn't argue with you. Economics is not good at timing particular events, and that's what guys like you are looking for. What they are supposed to do is help the government and the voters distinguish between good government policy and bad government policy.

 

[oldfart]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

"A more nuanced view" means incorporating large amounts of Marxism in your economic theories.

ah but they are not theories they are "predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis."

I guess what he means is predictive models based on Marxist assumptions that always seem to predict the superiority of Marxist theories!

I'm sure no one has the slightest idea what you are referring to. You are hurling invective without having a target. I actually had the work of Adam Smith in mind as I re-read "Wealth of Nations" every ten years and have just ordered a copy as my last was loaned out and not returned.

 

[oldfart]

You mean Paul "Wrong in the trillions column" Krugman? That Krugman?

"A more nuanced view" means incorporating large amounts of Marxism in your economic theories.

ah but they are not theories they are "predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis."

I guess what he means is predictive models based on Marxist assumptions that always seem to predict the superiority of Marxist theories!

"Predictive models base on historical evidence, data analysis and natural experiments" is another way to say "quackery" or "pure moonshine." You can't demonstrate the validity of economic theorems by using historical data. There's no way to isolate the independent variables. That statement alone is sufficient to demonstrate that Krugman is a quack.

First, I believe the statement is mine and not Krugman's; but I will give you allowance in that your brain cannot conceive of a poster making an argument from scratch. I am shocked that you have so little regrd for "Wealth of Nations, which I explained above I was referring.

 

[oldfart]

Are there ANY crank (AKA-"Austrian") economists who are taken seriously? ANY?

Well, by definition, no reasonable person would take a "crank" seriously, except for other cranks. That said, I respect the real work done many early Austrian economists which have become a part of mainstream consumer theory, capital theory and a number of other fields. Bohm-Bawerk, Menger, and the like come to mind.

 

[GWV5903]

Krugman is anything but accurate and more along the lines of "I told you so" as a so-called economist...

Friedman is my all time favorite, he was very good at telling it like it is...

When I think of how good he was it makes Krugman look more and more like a clown...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRpEV2tmYz4

 

[oldfart]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

We get a lot on this board also. I learned my basic economics back in the 60's when I would guess there was a consensus among about 85% of economists regarding how the economy worked. Most of the remainder were in finance and we always regarded "business economists" as a different breed. These were the guys who came up with the "efficient markets" hypothesis and bled over into insisting on micro foundations for macro analysis which is probably the greatest intellectual disaster in economic thought since Galbraith's "countervailing power" schtick.

As I have been out of teaching and into private business for the last thirty years and don't try to publish much or attend AEA conventions like I used to, I got pretty well out of touch. What changed seems to be a trifercation of the profession into three schools. First are the successors of the "business economists". They really don't spend much time on macro except as it directly effects corporate finance. They unabashedly favor deregulation, immigration reform, tax loopholes, and government subsidies; all for their industry. This puts them generally in agreement with conservative thinkers, except they make a lot of pragmatic exceptions, like immigration reform.

Another group is essentially right-wing ideologues, which I thought had almost died out. This group has come back with a vengeance, and doesn't necessarily get along with the business types. They don't pretend to do any economic analysis or research, and are better understood as dealing in political economy rather than economics. There is literally no coherent economic theory that comes from this group. They aren't Keynesians, or monetarists, or even Austrians in the original sense (Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Menger, etc). They are the Luddites of the economics profession, seeing no need to have models or predictions at all.

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics", by which he means the creation of predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis. If the predict well, they are good models; if not, they need to be improved or abandoned. What shocks me is that while the vast majority of the profession could have been identified with this 35 years ago, they are a bare majority now; and even the journals seem to have drifted away from scientific method into some obscure OCD with mathematical elegance (and this coming from a mathematical economist!) and theoretical microfoundations purity.

If this is where we are headed it is going to be a bumpy road.

I have an undergraduate degree in economics and have spent nearly 20 years in the investment business. I mean no offense, but I've come to the conclusion that economists are mostly useless in my profession. There are a few decent ones, but when they needed to matter the most - 2000, 2006 - their failure was so complete that it's hard to take the profession seriously.

That's probably an unfair generalization, but that's my observation.

I can't argue with you that a large part of the profession did not do well over the past decade. But the bulk of both the intellectual and policy disasters came from people with ideological blinders who promoted deregulation, hard money, fiscal austerity, despite the evidence of massive failure of their programs.

 

[bripat9643]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

We get a lot on this board also. I learned my basic economics back in the 60's when I would guess there was a consensus among about 85% of economists regarding how the economy worked. Most of the remainder were in finance and we always regarded "business economists" as a different breed. These were the guys who came up with the "efficient markets" hypothesis and bled over into insisting on micro foundations for macro analysis which is probably the greatest intellectual disaster in economic thought since Galbraith's "countervailing power" schtick.

As I have been out of teaching and into private business for the last thirty years and don't try to publish much or attend AEA conventions like I used to, I got pretty well out of touch. What changed seems to be a trifercation of the profession into three schools. First are the successors of the "business economists". They really don't spend much time on macro except as it directly effects corporate finance. They unabashedly favor deregulation, immigration reform, tax loopholes, and government subsidies; all for their industry. This puts them generally in agreement with conservative thinkers, except they make a lot of pragmatic exceptions, like immigration reform.

Another group is essentially right-wing ideologues, which I thought had almost died out. This group has come back with a vengeance, and doesn't necessarily get along with the business types. They don't pretend to do any economic analysis or research, and are better understood as dealing in political economy rather than economics. There is literally no coherent economic theory that comes from this group. They aren't Keynesians, or monetarists, or even Austrians in the original sense (Bohm-Bawerk, Hayek, Menger, etc). They are the Luddites of the economics profession, seeing no need to have models or predictions at all.

What's left is what Krugman calls "real economics", by which he means the creation of predictive models based on historical evidence, "natural experiments", and data analysis. If the predict well, they are good models; if not, they need to be improved or abandoned. What shocks me is that while the vast majority of the profession could have been identified with this 35 years ago, they are a bare majority now; and even the journals seem to have drifted away from scientific method into some obscure OCD with mathematical elegance (and this coming from a mathematical economist!) and theoretical microfoundations purity.

If this is where we are headed it is going to be a bumpy road.

I have an undergraduate degree in economics and have spent nearly 20 years in the investment business. I mean no offense, but I've come to the conclusion that economists are mostly useless in my profession. There are a few decent ones, but when they needed to matter the most - 2000, 2006 - their failure was so complete that it's hard to take the profession seriously.

That's probably an unfair generalization, but that's my observation.

I can't argue with you that a large part of the profession did not do well over the past decade. But the bulk of both the intellectual and policy disasters came from people with ideological blinders who promoted deregulation, hard money, fiscal austerity, despite the evidence of massive failure of their programs.

Hmmm . . sorry, but the "disasters" have all come from the opposite policies. There is no evidence that the above policies failed or were even tried, for that matter. We haven't had "hard money" in this country since 1914.

 

[Dot Com]

Real Americans and Real Economics
(snip)

What made me think about that concept is something sort of parallel I’ve noticed about the reaction to my writings. Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz. It’s inconceivable to him that you could have a more nuanced view without being a Marxist. And he’s outraged both that I have the temerity to claim that I’m doing economics and that other people seem to take me seriously.

Krugman NAILED IT!!!

This describes @CrusaderFrank and a couple others here:

Often, I find, the most rage-filled emails and voice mails come after I’ve written something fairly economistic, like today’s piece. And typically, part of the rant is something along the lines of “You call yourself an economist?” You see, the person delivering the rant has a notion of what economics is; he (it’s almost always a he) believes that “real economics” is about singing the praises of free markets — basically Capitalism Roolz.

college repub, closed-minded, Austrian school-type drones