"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
...
Hawke wrote:
"Tim Daneliuk" wrote in message
...
Hawke wrote:
Since he's an economist and has written a book and mentions this
specifically I
think his statistics are probably accurate.
This statement would be achingly funny if it weren't so achingly sad...


Yeah, that would seem true when you take it out of context like you did.
Anyone reading the following qualifying statements would not get that
impression though. He's not just "any" economist. But then you would
argue
with a Nobel Prize winning economist like Joe Steglitz or Paul Krugman
wouldn't you, even though they have Ph.D.s in economics and you don't.
You
remind me of the Monty Python comedian who wrote the book, "How to Argue
with Anyone". Your discounting of Chang's work is equally as silly.

Hawke



But I'm *not* discounting his work. I'm discounting the confidence you
place in economics as a discipline and upon a single source no less.
Economics is barely a science - hence the term "Dismal Science".

Well, the term (coined by Thomas Carlyle) actually derives from the fact
that Carlyle thought that Malthus represented economics, and Malthus said,
basically, we should all bend over and kiss our asses goodby. g That was
in the early- to mid-19th century.

It's
predictive powers have been poor at best. You cite Krugman and I'll
cite von Mises, Hayek, and Friedman any one of whom (I'd argue)
contributed considerably more to making economics useful than
Krugman, but of course that's just my opinion and subject to revision.
The point wasn't to make fun of your source, but rather suggest that
breathless confidence in such a source is misplaced. If this thread - and
the
entire history of economics - demonstrates anything is that the
field hasn't exactly distinguished itself with great results.

That's true enough. It's an iffy business, something like medicine.


As to having received a Nobel, so did Carter (a incompetent political
hack), Arafat (a murdering thug), and Gore (a fraud and opportunist
feeding at the public trough) thereby demonstrating that the vacuity
of award today as it is made the handmaiden of political correctness.

Ouch! Some of them were really worthy. Krugman won for New Trade Theory (his
specialty is the economics of international trade). Friedman won for
reviving monetary theory. It was good work, but the world is more
complicated than either of them could accommodate with their regression
models.

--
Ed Huntress