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Economics are hated because economical arguments are used to justify why we cannot do the necessary things all while doing things that bail out the rich for the

by atoav 9mo ago

Economics are hated because economical arguments are used to justify why we cannot do the necessary things all while doing things that bail out the rich for the tenth time. You don't need to be an economist to realize who is getting fucked over. I am not from the US, but a vote for Trump for many was just a vote to burn it all down, especially because the other candidate was perceived to standing for perpetuating the status-quo. I am not saying I like Trump. In 2016 when he was running for the first time I stood behind the back then very unpopular opinion that he is a fascist and I would have loved to have been wrong about it. Economists claim to be like physicists, neutral and just observing, but somehow the economically benefitial measures always benefit the few at the cost of the many. Now that has nothing to do with economics per se. Marx was an economist after all. It has to do with how economics are used by the political class.

fatherwavelet 9mo ago
I have an interest in econophysics and what people think of as "economics" is mostly bullshit. David Ruelle put it best in 1991 when he summed up economics as "We don't currently have the tools to properly study this subject". 35 years later we only have slightly better tools.
- mdnahas 9mo ago
  Economist here. (Started as programmer, worked in finance, got Masters in Econ.) Econ is a big field. I think it knows a lot at the microeconomics level. There are impressive mathematical tools and economists have found “natural experiments” which test causality. Macroeconomists don’t know much at all. We can’t even create artificial economies - the agent-based simulations have dozens of parameters and our tools are bad at studying those imperfect fake economies. I’ve looked a bit into econophysics. They seem more on the path to getting somewhere. But it’s still a long road.

by atoav 9mo ago

fatherwavelet 9mo ago

I have an interest in econophysics and what people think of as "economics" is mostly bullshit. David Ruelle put it best in 1991 when he summed up economics as "We don't currently have the tools to properly study this subject". 35 years later we only have slightly better tools.

mdnahas 9mo ago
Economist here. (Started as programmer, worked in finance, got Masters in Econ.) Econ is a big field. I think it knows a lot at the microeconomics level. There are impressive mathematical tools and economists have found “natural experiments” which test causality. Macroeconomists don’t know much at all. We can’t even create artificial economies - the agent-based simulations have dozens of parameters and our tools are bad at studying those imperfect fake economies. I’ve looked a bit into econophysics. They seem more on the path to getting somewhere. But it’s still a long road.