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> Mr. Navarro holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. When will we accept that economics is a bullcrap degree, even more so at the doctorate le

> Mr. Navarro holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. When will we accept that economics is a bullcrap degree, even more so at the doctorate level?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> When will we accept that economics is a bullcrap degree, even more so at the doctorate level? America continuing to bet on anti-intellectualism is the problem. Popular railing against economics is what’s getting us into a recession.
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  It is however modern economics that has got us into an exponential multi-deca-trillion dollar debt from which there is no coming back. It has architectured the inevitable currency collapse.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - pfisch 2y ago
    Economics is not forcing the GOP to extend the tax cuts right now. Economics do not override politicians.
  - pfisch 2y ago
    This is like blaming scientists for global warming because there are a small group of scientists willing to sell their credibility to justify not taking action against climate change.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > modern economics that has got us into an exponential multi-deca-trillion dollar debt Are you referring to MMT [1]? Because it’s not mainstream economics. And it never said you can run deficits without consequence, just that inflation is the limiting result. Which is technically true. But practically useless given the short-term interests of politicians. Mainstream economics has cautioned against the national debt for decades. Idiots got pitched that economists don’t know what they’re talking about, meanwhile, and so that advice was ignored. Now we’ve gone full circle to blaming the field for the outcome it predicted. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory
    - pclmulqdq 2y ago
      MMT is about as mainstream as it gets for monetary theories.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > MMT is about as mainstream as it gets for monetary theories It’s not, literally the first consequential term in the Wikipedia article is “heterodox,” but I’m curious where you came to believe this?
        notahacker 2y ago
        And about 50% of MMT literature is attacks on mainstream economics [or straw man versions of mainstream economics]...
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        It’s analogous to MOND [1]. Mathematically valid. Genuinely interesting. An active field of research. But heterodox, and thus coming with a stable of armchair physicists who are drawn to it because it feels rebellious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics
        pclmulqdq 2y ago
        "Heterodox" is a term of art in economics, it doesn't mean what "heterodox" means in English. And the justifications given for most social policies come from MMT. Policy makers love MMT, especially progressive ones and ones who want to give out helicopter money. Economists seem cooler on the idea, but it's a mainstream theory among people making economic decisions. MMT is mostly just Keynseanism taken to a sort of unintuitive but logical conclusion. It's not nearly as heterodox (using the English word) as something like Austrian economics.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
    > It has architectured the inevitable currency collapse. I'm 61. I've been hearing this about the US national debt since I was a teenager. When do you imagine this "inevitable" currency collapse will occur? Do you consider the recent actions of the current administration to make it more or less likely?
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      It’s a secular version of the Rapture.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        That’s a good analogy. Like the Rapture, the people who talk the most about it seem curiously hurried to bring it on.
    - YZF 2y ago
      During your lifetime the US economic and political status in the world has been on the rise. It was viewed as an island of stability and growth. I think the current administration isn't helping but we're talking about a multi-decade process here. Some of what we see today goes back to Bush and Obama policies. It also goes to geopolitical changes, China, India, Russia. Globalization. Technological changes. Climate change. etc. etc.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
        > During your lifetime the US economic and political status in the world has been on the rise. And yet ... various people, mostly republicans, have spent a good part of my lifetime telling us that the sky is about to fall in. It may yet fall. But they are starting to seem more like boys that like to cry wolf than prophets.
    - OutOfHere 2y ago
      You have been hearing since you were a teenager that people are mortal, that you yourself are mortal, yet you haven't witnessed it yourself. Do you therefore imagine that you are not, that it is not inevitable?
  - kentm 2y ago
    I don’t think it’s economics that got us into that. It’s primarily been incredible fiscal irresponsibility, mainly from Republicans, that has done so. Congress hasn’t really agreed or followed mainstream economics as long as I’ve been alive.
- YZF 2y ago
  This isn't black and white. Economics in many ways is about human behaviour and that will never be a precise science. We shouldn't be anti-intellectual but we also shouldn't be slaves to theory. Economists don't necessarily have a crystal ball here; they have tools that can help decision making but there's a lot more that goes into decisions. There is also uncertainty, the same input can yield very different results. Losing nuance is what gets you backlash. This is what happened in the pandemic and this is part of why we're paying a price now because nobody trusts anyone. And in the era of social media it's doubly easy to lose nuance.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Losing nuance is what gets you backlash Sure. But part of that nuance is scientific literacy. Treating the influencers who were once scientists as representative of the field is one of the roots of the problem. An influencer will never be nuanced—the medium doesn’t incentivise it.
pfisch 2y ago
You can find people who are willing to be dishonest for money/power in any profession or with any degree.
Spooky23 2y ago
Blaming the degree is the Trump narrative for damage control that Elon is floating. Navarro is the candidate for scapegoat. This is a dude who went to jail for Trump’s coup by the way — now he’s gonna be the poster child for woke ivory tower academia. Tariffs as a tool to pivot towards an export focused economy isn’t a bad thing necessarily. But tools only help build things with a plan to guide them. Cooking up some formula with ChatGPT, printing a chart and taking a sweeping action is just dumb. It’s bad policy, bad implementation, bad leadership. A smart leader would approach Canada and say “your tariffs and subsidy of onions are hurting our farmers”. A tariff is a tool that could neutralize that issue. The problem is, you need a smart leader and articulated vision.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
af78 2y ago
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro#Views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro#Views: > Navarro's views on trade are considered outside the mainstream of economic thought. ... According to Politico, Navarro's economic theories are "considered fringe" by his fellow economists. A New Yorker reporter described Navarro's views on trade and China as so radical "that, even with his assistance, I was unable to find another economist who fully agrees with them." > According to Lee Branstetter, economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and trade expert with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Navarro "was never a part of the group of economists who ever studied the global free-trade system... He doesn't publish in journals. What he's writing and saying right now has nothing to do with what he got his Harvard Ph.D. in... He doesn't do research that would meet the scientific standards of that community." Marcus Noland, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, described a tax and trade paper written by Navarro and Wilbur Ross for Trump as "a complete misunderstanding of international trade, on their part."
insane_dreamer 2y ago
That was also a very long time ago. Plenty of time since them for him to move to fringy-economics. After all, economists and write and publish whatever they like; it's only when they get in serious policy positions that it creates problems for the reason.
rsynnott 2y ago
This is a bit like saying “Andrew Wakefield is evidence that doctors are all quacks”. Navarro is… extremely fringe, as economists go.
senderista 2y ago
There is a well-known young-earth creationist who holds a PhD in geology from Harvard. Does that mean Harvard's geology program is garbage?
CRConrad 2y ago
Holding a humble combo-BSc in ecoomics and statistics, I'm reluctant to agree, but... Yeah, guess I do.

> Mr. Navarro holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. When will we accept that economics is a bullcrap degree, even more so at the doctorate level?

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> When will we accept that economics is a bullcrap degree, even more so at the doctorate level? America continuing to bet on anti-intellectualism is the problem. Popular railing against economics is what’s getting us into a recession.

OutOfHere 2y ago
It is however modern economics that has got us into an exponential multi-deca-trillion dollar debt from which there is no coming back. It has architectured the inevitable currency collapse.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- pfisch 2y ago
  Economics is not forcing the GOP to extend the tax cuts right now. Economics do not override politicians.
- pfisch 2y ago
  This is like blaming scientists for global warming because there are a small group of scientists willing to sell their credibility to justify not taking action against climate change.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > modern economics that has got us into an exponential multi-deca-trillion dollar debt Are you referring to MMT [1]? Because it’s not mainstream economics. And it never said you can run deficits without consequence, just that inflation is the limiting result. Which is technically true. But practically useless given the short-term interests of politicians. Mainstream economics has cautioned against the national debt for decades. Idiots got pitched that economists don’t know what they’re talking about, meanwhile, and so that advice was ignored. Now we’ve gone full circle to blaming the field for the outcome it predicted. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_monetary_theory
  - pclmulqdq 2y ago
    MMT is about as mainstream as it gets for monetary theories.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > MMT is about as mainstream as it gets for monetary theories It’s not, literally the first consequential term in the Wikipedia article is “heterodox,” but I’m curious where you came to believe this?
      - notahacker 2y ago
        And about 50% of MMT literature is attacks on mainstream economics [or straw man versions of mainstream economics]...
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        It’s analogous to MOND [1]. Mathematically valid. Genuinely interesting. An active field of research. But heterodox, and thus coming with a stable of armchair physicists who are drawn to it because it feels rebellious. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics
      - pclmulqdq 2y ago
        "Heterodox" is a term of art in economics, it doesn't mean what "heterodox" means in English. And the justifications given for most social policies come from MMT. Policy makers love MMT, especially progressive ones and ones who want to give out helicopter money. Economists seem cooler on the idea, but it's a mainstream theory among people making economic decisions. MMT is mostly just Keynseanism taken to a sort of unintuitive but logical conclusion. It's not nearly as heterodox (using the English word) as something like Austrian economics.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
  > It has architectured the inevitable currency collapse. I'm 61. I've been hearing this about the US national debt since I was a teenager. When do you imagine this "inevitable" currency collapse will occur? Do you consider the recent actions of the current administration to make it more or less likely?
  - ceejayoz 2y ago
    It’s a secular version of the Rapture.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      That’s a good analogy. Like the Rapture, the people who talk the most about it seem curiously hurried to bring it on.
  - YZF 2y ago
    During your lifetime the US economic and political status in the world has been on the rise. It was viewed as an island of stability and growth. I think the current administration isn't helping but we're talking about a multi-decade process here. Some of what we see today goes back to Bush and Obama policies. It also goes to geopolitical changes, China, India, Russia. Globalization. Technological changes. Climate change. etc. etc.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 2y ago
      > During your lifetime the US economic and political status in the world has been on the rise. And yet ... various people, mostly republicans, have spent a good part of my lifetime telling us that the sky is about to fall in. It may yet fall. But they are starting to seem more like boys that like to cry wolf than prophets.
  - OutOfHere 2y ago
    You have been hearing since you were a teenager that people are mortal, that you yourself are mortal, yet you haven't witnessed it yourself. Do you therefore imagine that you are not, that it is not inevitable?
- kentm 2y ago
  I don’t think it’s economics that got us into that. It’s primarily been incredible fiscal irresponsibility, mainly from Republicans, that has done so. Congress hasn’t really agreed or followed mainstream economics as long as I’ve been alive.
YZF 2y ago
This isn't black and white. Economics in many ways is about human behaviour and that will never be a precise science. We shouldn't be anti-intellectual but we also shouldn't be slaves to theory. Economists don't necessarily have a crystal ball here; they have tools that can help decision making but there's a lot more that goes into decisions. There is also uncertainty, the same input can yield very different results. Losing nuance is what gets you backlash. This is what happened in the pandemic and this is part of why we're paying a price now because nobody trusts anyone. And in the era of social media it's doubly easy to lose nuance.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Losing nuance is what gets you backlash Sure. But part of that nuance is scientific literacy. Treating the influencers who were once scientists as representative of the field is one of the roots of the problem. An influencer will never be nuanced—the medium doesn’t incentivise it.

pfisch 2y ago

You can find people who are willing to be dishonest for money/power in any profession or with any degree.

Spooky23 2y ago

Blaming the degree is the Trump narrative for damage control that Elon is floating. Navarro is the candidate for scapegoat. This is a dude who went to jail for Trump’s coup by the way — now he’s gonna be the poster child for woke ivory tower academia. Tariffs as a tool to pivot towards an export focused economy isn’t a bad thing necessarily. But tools only help build things with a plan to guide them. Cooking up some formula with ChatGPT, printing a chart and taking a sweeping action is just dumb. It’s bad policy, bad implementation, bad leadership. A smart leader would approach Canada and say “your tariffs and subsidy of onions are hurting our farmers”. A tariff is a tool that could neutralize that issue. The problem is, you need a smart leader and articulated vision.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

af78 2y ago

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro#Views https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Navarro#Views: > Navarro's views on trade are considered outside the mainstream of economic thought. ... According to Politico, Navarro's economic theories are "considered fringe" by his fellow economists. A New Yorker reporter described Navarro's views on trade and China as so radical "that, even with his assistance, I was unable to find another economist who fully agrees with them." > According to Lee Branstetter, economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University and trade expert with the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Navarro "was never a part of the group of economists who ever studied the global free-trade system... He doesn't publish in journals. What he's writing and saying right now has nothing to do with what he got his Harvard Ph.D. in... He doesn't do research that would meet the scientific standards of that community." Marcus Noland, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, described a tax and trade paper written by Navarro and Wilbur Ross for Trump as "a complete misunderstanding of international trade, on their part."

insane_dreamer 2y ago

That was also a very long time ago. Plenty of time since them for him to move to fringy-economics. After all, economists and write and publish whatever they like; it's only when they get in serious policy positions that it creates problems for the reason.

rsynnott 2y ago

This is a bit like saying “Andrew Wakefield is evidence that doctors are all quacks”. Navarro is… extremely fringe, as economists go.

senderista 2y ago

There is a well-known young-earth creationist who holds a PhD in geology from Harvard. Does that mean Harvard's geology program is garbage?

CRConrad 2y ago

Holding a humble combo-BSc in ecoomics and statistics, I'm reluctant to agree, but... Yeah, guess I do.