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How did we geeks become experts on macroeconomics?
- giardini 18y agoBankers are not necessarily evil but their incompetence/greed appears unbounded. Reference the current credit crisis and mortgage blowout. It is quite obvious that we can no longer allow them to make decisions and that the process of loan approval will have to be automated and safety checks (independent auditing) added. And bye-bye "investment banking" that has any government protection. And how would the OP or anyone else know the Federal Reserve Board does "a half decent job?" "Money is not debt" - Did he mean "currency is not debt"? When I borrow $10k at the bank, money is created (they need only maintain a fractional reserve) and there is also an associated debt created - I owe the bank $10k. The "money" and the debt are unconditionally linked. I think he's overspecified his point, that possibly being that macroeconomists have no trustworthy predictive models. Inotherwords, he's repeating part of Nassim Nicholas Taleb's work: http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/ http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/
- cchooper 18y ago> When I borrow $10k at the bank, money is created This is a perfect example of the kind of misunderstanding the OP was talking about. Money is created by depositing money at a bank, not by the bank lending it. Banks only lend base money, and it's illegal for them to print that. Of course, people usually don't take the cash loan directly, but have the money deposited at the bank instead, which results in money (in the form of current account balances) being created. But it's the act of depositing, not the act of borrowing, that creates the money. If they took the cash, no money would be created.
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- wlievens 18y agoBanks don't create money. When you deposit money, they give you the promise that you can have it back, but you are no longer owner of the money. Similarly, when you borrow money, they let you have some of their money (when you withdraw) on promise that you pay it back, with interest. Banks don't create money. Government institutions do.
- cchooper 18y agoA current account is a bit like a short-term bond. It is a valuable commodity that is created by banks and can be traded in the market. The difference is that bank trading systems allow current account balances to be used directly as payment, without having to be converted into cash first. Therefore the current accounts themselves are being used as payment, and count as money in their own right. This is why current account balances are counted in all the official measures of money quantities, including the most strict measures such as M0.
- natrius 18y agoAccount balances are not a part of M0. M0 is all of the bills and coins in existence. Your bank does not have all of the bills to back all of its customers account balances. Account balances are part of M1.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- likpok 18y agoThere is a subtle but important difference between money and currency. Only government creates currency, which is-a money. However, both banks and government can create money in other ways, such as through the fractional reserve system or through buying/selling securities (government only).
- j2d2 18y agoThis is a bit of a mistake because fractional lending is creating money. If I deposit $100 in a bank and that bank lends you $100, $200 is in use even though only $100 exists.
- cchooper 18y agoIf you deposit $100 at a bank then you will receive a $100 bank account. That account is the additional money. It remains money whether or not the bank lends out your original $100. So the money is created in the act of depositing, not the act of lending.
- j2d2 18y agoIf the bank doesn't lend, no additional money is created. They could just hold on to it.
- cchooper 18y agoWhether they hold onto it or not is irrelevant. If a company issues a bond, but doesn't spend the money it has been loaned, the bond still exists. If the bank issues you with a current account, but doesn't spend the money you loaned it, the current account still exists. The current account is the new money. It exists. You could spend it by transferring it and yet the bank still has the original $100.
- j2d2 18y agoI stand by what I've said thus far and am finished.
- astine 18y agoIf my company deposits a sun at a bank, my accountants will treat the deposit as an asset. If I then take out a loan from the same bank, that 'new' money is then treated as an asset. Companies and banks can trade on these 'assets,' in the form of stocks and bonds. In this way, the same money can be treated as an asset several times and the money supply, in the form of credit, can be effectively expanded. Reputable banks wouldn't allow this, but it's completely legal.
- pelle 18y agoYou are both right. When it comes to the Money Supply economists talk about M0 which is actual currency issued by the federal reserve (or your countries equivalent). Then there are M1 to M3 which are count increasingly less hard money and those do consists of money created when banks lend money in the fractional reserve system. Banks can only lend money when people deposit so in this way you are both right. For more see the wikipedia Money Supply page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply
- nandemo 18y agoEr, did you read the whole post? I’ve done a fair bit of reading on topics like the Federal Reserve and money creation, like any good amateur, and the only thing I know for certain is that it’s insanely complex. In the final paragraph he's obviously being facetious.
- astine 18y agoThat's not the impression I got. I go the impression that he was saying that because these things are incredibly complex, these opinion are necessarily wrong because they come from inexperts.
- swombat 18y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=472964 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=472964 This article, recently posted here, as well as my comments on it, should help you escape from your fallacious "bankers are evil" reasoning. Bankers are not evil. They're hard working, competent people most of whom have little to do with the mess we're currently in.
- davidw 18y agoI think programmers have a tendency to believe in simple, elegant systems without a lot of fuzzy human messiness in them. It's discomforting to look at our present system and think that it actually is pretty good, and the best we've done so far. Wouldn't it be so much easier if there were something cleaner and simpler that would make all the problems and uncertainty go away.
- msluyter 18y agoAnd this may also be one (not the only) reason libertarianism seems to be so popular on HN. It assumes a relatively small set of basic axioms (like Nozick's self-ownership principle, supremacy of markets) and thus ostensibly appears to be an elegant, self-consistent system. (That's actually debatable, hence the "ostensibly.") In general the article demonstrates what PG was saying in his article on identity. A lot of economic theory is difficult/impossible to test empirically, so there's plenty of room for all sorts of nonsense like ideology/identity/etc... to enter into one's economic world view.
- dantheman 18y agoAlso, it's a basic freedom issue. The desired end results of a given economic policy are debatable, so even if we knew what the exact outcome of any given policy would be there would still be debate about what we should do. Personally, I am not an "ends justify the means" kind of guy so a lot of economic policies are off the table from the start, even if they would in the end generate more wealth -- wealth is not the end all be all. The reason people are so passionate about it is because the ideas people are expressing will have a real effect on them, often at the point of gun. Someone advocating higher taxes is in effect taking what is yours, someone advocating nationalization is one again advocating taking what is yours. Someone advocating setting minimum/maximum prices is directly controlling how much stuff you can have.
- anamax 18y ago> Personally, I am not an "ends justify the means" kind of guy I'm a "means produce the ends" kind of guy. For example, I'm pretty sure that a system which uses coercive means will have coercive ends. FWIW, many people disagree with that specific example - they insist that their system that uses coercion will not end up being coercive.
- Tichy 18y agoHow else to get an understanding, if not by reading and discussing stuff? Why should it not be possible to gain an understanding of economics (including knowing what we don't know yet)? Also, economics has a lot of maths in it, which many geeks tend to excel in. So I don't think their starting position is that bad. Actually even most economics students try to brush over the maths, so I don't have troubles believing that some geeks might have a better understanding of economics than the actual economists.
- peregrine 18y agoI've been waiting for an article like this for a long time. Anytime there is an article about money the entire comments section will light up in flame. I will simply post, "we have no idea what will happen, not even the experts. Live responsibly and work hard and you know all you will ever need to." People can't down mod me, and it never insights any sort of emotions or response so it dies near the bottom. Thanks for the link!
- mixmax 18y agoThe reason people, not just hackers, have opinions on macroeconomics is that unlike many other branches of science it hasn't come up with a lot of definitive answers. As the article notes experimentation, a basic ingredient in science, is very hard in macroeconomics. This means that there are all sorts of ideas floating around on how economies actually work. Some reputable, some not. Newtons laws of motion don't get discussed much because experimentation and time give overwhelming evidence that they're probably right. Thus there's not much point in discussing them, they're accepted as a foundation on which you can build, which is exactly what science does. Standing on the shoulders of giants. Economics is different. Partly because of the inability to test a thesis, partly because everything is closely linked making it hard to distinguish cause from effect. I actually believe macro economics is currently in it's early stages, with professional practitioners still trying to get a grasp on the basics. Even among Nobel laureates in economics there's still disagreement about whether Keynes, one of the most heralded economists ever, was right or wrong. And he wrote his main work "The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money" in 1936. Likewise, if you look at the wikipedia entry on the great depression there's still substantial debate as to what caused it, and how we got out of it. I also think that this discussion is good. Yes, there are some ridicolous theories on youtube, but the serious amateur probably knows enough to discard these as the crap they are. A public discussion of macroeconomics will, however, be very fruitful as people from other fields bring their expertise to the subject. Mandelbrot and his knowledge of fractals and mathematics has interesting points on economy, Kahnemann uses psychology to explain economic phenomena, and hackers, of course, can set up interesting computer models, which is probably the closest we come to experimentation in this field.
- lionhearted 18y agoThis book will give you some overall perspective: http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-50th-Anniversary/dp/0930073193 http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-50th-Anniversary/... Here's a link to one chapter on rent control, with detailed examples (saw this here at HN before reading the book): http://jim.com/econ/chap18p1.html http://jim.com/econ/chap18p1.html Here's part of the reason people won't honestly evaluate the pros and cons of economic arguments: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/03/blue_or_green_o.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/03/blue_or_green_o.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/02/politics_is_the.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/02/politics_is_the.html Finally, economics is complicated, but we've got almost all of human history to give us some data. It's got an immense amount of noise in it, but general trends do emerge. Price controls far below market have always created a black market, even in a hardcore enforced police state. That's a fact. Maximum price of goods under what people want to pay... human behavior... black market. That example is clear enough, and not many places in the world today are trying that one. Likewise, we're constantly trending to better economic systems with some blips here and there along the way. Many of the ideas we're arguing about today will be settled, and many of the positions held today will look really foolish in the near future. That's part of being human and progress in thought.
- jfoutz 18y agoThese two things * Easy to grasp (the basic principles, anyway) * Experiments are pretty much impossible (making being disproven relatively rare) make me think that it is not possible to be an expert on macroeconomics. Or, since nothing is falsifiable my opinion about how these random rules fit together is just as good as anyone else's. My entire career is based on how random rules fit together. I'm good at it. That's why I'm an expert on macroeconomics.
- cglee 18y agoExperiments are at the core of modern social science. In general, econ, poli sci, etc have been moving towards a more rigorous statistics and experiments-based approach. Now whether or not you think social science experiments are valid is another question, but they do perform.
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoI don't get what prompted the basic complaint of the article. The quality of discussion I see online about economics is usually pretty decent. Much better than some CNN circle-jerk of pundits, anyway.
- zacharypinter 18y agoI think the catch with macroeconomics is that anybody can come by after the fact and provide an explanation for why things happened the way they did. Many of the explanations are not falsifiable, and two competing explanations might both sound reasonable. So, a person chooses the explanation they prefer for some reason other than economics. If they distrust government, they prefer the explanation that says it was government's fault. If they hold contempt for the rich, they prefer the explanation of corporate greed. And so on... One of the key tenants of science is that a hypothesis makes testable predictions. If we can't falsify economic explanations, then perhaps we should take this approach and focus on the theories that make the best predictions.
- mightybyte 18y agoThis sounds very similar to PG's recent essay, though they're coming at it from slightly different directions. I like his point about the big concepts of contentious topics being reasonably simple. His comparison to physics is a great example of this. People are only likely to make a topic part of their identity if they think they have a reasonable understanding of it. Macroeconomics is a bit more scientific than politics and religion and seems to fit nicely in the sweet spot of simple-enough topics that are also complex enough to appeal to the above average intelligence of the geek community. Maybe macroeconomics is the geek's politics.
- snitko 18y agoActually, that was my first thought, that it's very similar to what PG has recently written. But then I thought that this case is different and the author has made wrong assumptions. I don't think geeks made economics part of their identity. I think sometimes it's not enough for geeks to be geeky in their own field and they want to demonstrate their ability to analyze and become experts in things that lie behind computer fields, while not realizing this might not be just as easy for them as learning another language.
- mightybyte 18y agoI completely agree with you here. There are certainly geeks (and HN seems to have a higher concentration of them) who haven't fallen into the trap of making a macroeconomic belief part of their identity. But there are plenty who have. This guy appears to be ranting at all of them, with the questionable implied assumption that you can't have useful things to say on complex topics without some kind of advanced degree.
- ellyagg 18y agoWhy do people keep saying that? He didn't suggest any implied assumption like that at all. And, no, if you don't understand the system, then you can have very little of value to say on it. Just precisely like if I don't understand quantum mechanics, it would be extremely stupid of me to make passionate forum posts about it.
- cia_plant 18y agoThe underlying assumption of this blog post is that only experts should ever discuss technically complex topics. I disagree strongly. The common notion is that someone who hasn't read 1000 books about the conventional academic wisdom can't possibly make a valid argument. However, academic fields can often get into a cycle of conformance to an absurd belief. You don't have to read Aquinas to make the correct argument that belief in God is absurd from the start. You don't have to read Skinner to see the problem with behaviorism. You don't have to read all the latest analytic philosophy to see that it's all circular and useless. And you don't have to read the latest mainstream economics to see that it's based on a narrow and largely useless formalization of the difficult complexities of the actual economy.
- cchooper 18y agoI don't know why everyone thinks he said that people shouldn't discuss economics. What he said was that geeks overrate their competence and therefore their discussions tend to be stupid.
- mynameishere 18y agoErr, his overarching implication was that people should just shut up and let the experts have their way. I guess that was his implication, because it's hard to tell from all the whiny confusion: The more interesting question is why? Why the false expertise? Why the heir of authority? Why the certainty?. The conversations tend to be extremely emotional and defensive. I actually don't see too much false expertise, or pretenses of authority, etc. People want to discuss things so they do. If it effects their lives, well, who's to say otherwise? Oh right, some jerk with a blog. If the treasury department issues 750 billion dollars with my name on it, I'm frankly not much a citizen if I declare my unavoidable ignorance on the matter and so devote myself to my suitable recreations of drinking beer and watching football.
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoThe last paragraph makes it clear the real point of the article is: "People in TV and major newspapers agree with me. Only silly internet people say anything different. So shut up."
- falsestprophet 18y ago"The more interesting question is why? Why the false expertise? Why the heir of authority? Why the certainty?. The conversations tend to be extremely emotional and defensive. This doesn’t happen in other fields. Programmers love to talk about quantum physics, the speed of light, and black holes. But you won’t find geeks getting all authoritative on the finer points of the event horizon? Why? Because that shit is complicated, beyond their knowledge, and they know it. This doesn’t happen with macroeconomics. Don’t kid yourself. It’s complicated, too. And it’s beyond your knowledge. So what’s the difference? Here’s my theory. Macro-economics is: Easy to grasp (the basic principles, anyway) Experiments are pretty much impossible (making being disproven relatively rare) The first makes you think you are an expert, and the second removes any fear you have of being wrong." A cynic might observe that all of this is true of both the author and professional economists (and other soft scientists). Many of their theories cannot be tested, presumably this fact ought to temper their certainty. As far as I can tell, it doesn't. No lack of certainty is evident in this post. The author's chief defense of academic economic hypothesis is they are complicated. I have not had much patience for the "its complicated, trust us" idea since Catholic school. Perhaps the author's and our time would have been better spent if he offered a coherent defense (maybe even using vaguely correct grammar) of these academic economic hypothesis rather than a sweeping ad hominem attack.
- jacoblyles 18y agoWill Wilkinson's blog has been tracking how professional economist opinion on the bailout tends to follow their political views. On issues like free trade and price controls there is little disagreement among economists. But in macroeconomics the professional debate isn't much better than the layman debate.
- nsrivast 18y agoSo at the very least, we should try to build consensus in the layman debate against price controls and for free trade. Angry letters to congressmen supporting "Buy American" clauses and all that, with the strength of the Ron Paul groundswell.
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- zupatol 18y agoI actually studied economics and worked 4 years in the economic department of a bank, but I can't say I understand much about the economy. My feeling is macroeconomics itself doesn't help understand much of the economy. There is hardly a topic where all economists agree. If you want to have an idea about how the best economists think the economy works, read the economist. Don't be surprised if they completely change their minds now and then. Only last year I would not have believed they would support a stimulus package today.
- TravisLS 18y agoLooking at our present crisis in particular, there's certainly something to be said for taking a simplified approach based on core economic principles, logic, and intuition (all three of which this author seems to dismiss categorically). Yes macroeconomics is complicated, and yes we have created concepts in our financial systems that are beyond the understanding of everyone involved. But the basic fundamentals still apply and should still be discussed in the context of the more complex systems. The idea of long-term equilibrium doesn't disappear just because your financial system is convoluted. The foundation of macroeconomics is the aggregation of microeconomics, which comes down to people making decisions with their money. And everyone can understand that - even programmers. If the public truly can't understand the financial system, then that's a tremendous problem in and of itself.
- chez17 18y agoThis is 100% true, but what this guy is failing to mention is that it seems that economists don't understand macroeconomics. We are in a terrible terrible mess that was predicted by a very select few that have been shouting out for years by this point. The majority of economists seemed to think everything was just fine. I read somewhere that the world has lost 40% of it's wealth in this recession. This tells me that the old systems, even if I don't understand them, aren't working that great. They very well be the best we have, but it doesn't take a rocket scientists or macro-economists to see that.
- yummyfajitas 18y agoA minor note: we didn't lose 40% of the world's wealth in this recession. In the years leading up to the recession, we wrongly believed the world's wealth to be 40% greater than it actually was. Figuring out that the true value is lower didn't destroy wealth, it just looks that way in many timeseries.
- sethg 18y agoHow are you defining "true value"? The inflated prices that various assets had at the height of the bubble were "true values" in the sense that their owners could sell them (or, more importantly, put them up as collateral for loans) for those values. Someone who bought a house at the top of the market, lost their job, and is now trying to sell their house so they can move to somewhere more affordable, is certainly feeling a real loss right now.
- yummyfajitas 18y agoI guess by "true value", I mean the value that assets would have had absent the housing-bubble induced speculative premium. My best estimate for this quantity: let gamma = (historical price to own)/(historical price to rent), with "historical" meaning pre-1995. Gamma was more or less constant up until the housing bubble. I'm guessing the "true value" of a house was in the neighborhood of gamma x (price to rent).
- pelle 18y agoI myself am an armchair economics. I am fairly well read on the subject over the year. I think to an extent the article has a point. However if the whole point of the post is true, then it's summary should of course also be taken into doubt. ;-) The real trouble with economics is that even economists disagree. It really is impossible to say anything like consensus amongst economists is x. A recent EconTalk (an excellent podcast to learn more about economics) talks about just this issue. Why do economists disagree: http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/roberts_and_han.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/01/roberts_and_han.htm... Their conclusion is that it is so easy to go in and fine statistics to prove just about any point, so in the end it is the "religion" of the economist in the end that decides which statistics and studies he uses. The two major schools and yes there are many more of Economics Keynesian vs Austrian/Chicago (ok those are 2 schools, but closely related) are in such a fundamental disagreement about just about anything. Which brings me to question the premise of your article. I think it's healthy that geeks have an interest in economics. In particular geeks involved in startups need to know and understand the dynamics going on. So their analysis might not match yours, but that doesn't matter. They have an understanding and interest that helps them understand the world around them. This is not necessarily bad, in particularly if they are open to learning. Saying that geeks shouldn't think about economics, because it's too complex for them to understand completely is just plain silly and also extremely elitist. It is also to a certain extent hypocritical as your post intentional or not says "Your understanding of economics is not as good as mine, so just stop thinking you know anything". My "religion" in economics is the Austrian school of economics. I definitely view the world and politics through these colored glasses. I gradually arrived there on a long journey starting off as a socialist. My life as a programmer has definitely helped me reach the conclusion that the economy is so complex that no amount of experts could possibly understand it completely. That the only possible way of living (not controlling) in such a complex system is through a distributed network of autonomous agents. I am sure many other programmers have reached the same conclusions. My belief in markets has been flavored recently by Nassim Taleb's Black Swan, who concludes that the reason free markets are superior is not because of some complex theory of efficient prices, but because free markets allow more people to experiment and therefore accidentally find the right answers. An expert driven planned economy allows only one person throwing the dice. The next 3 paragraphs should be understood is my conclusion about elitists as seen through my "free market" goggles: Then again there are many other programmers who follow another religion. Since childhood many programmers have always been the most intelligent person we know. If you grow up like this it is very easy to start seeing other people as stupid. This is essentially how elitism grows. It is very hard to avoid being elitist, when you spend a lot of time analyzing every situation in your life and see the vast majority of the people out there not doing the same. This elitist way of thinking almost requires the intelligentsia to take control. People often credit this way of thinking to Plato, all though it is such a natural way of thinking I'm sure it goes way back. The Keynesian approach is one of the less evil outcomes of this elitist way of thinking. "We need to stimulate the economy so the small simple people can build their economy up". The other extreme was Lenin's dictatorship of the proletariat, where he concluded that it would take several generations of reeducation of the people by the elite, before society would be perfect. These two approaches while very different have the same fundamental reasoning that people are stupid and we the decision makers are not. Both of these economic religions are very common among geeks. I also think it is natural that they are prevalent and that people discuss it. You see both of these (I know I'm overgeneralizing) battle it out on hacker news. I think this is actually healthy. I know that I can't convince a true believer of socialism that the free markets are the way to go. I can also safely say that it is highly unlikely that anyone will convince me in a single discussion that we should all become leninists. That said, I have been corrected several times in discussions here on hacker news and have learnt from that. It is also an interesting and fun intellectual exercise for both of us. Who knows we might even convince someone sitting on the fence to jump off in our direction. My conclusion is that Geeks and in particular geeks in startups should have an interest in economics. I also don't think we need to hold geeks to an even higher standard than actual card holding economics professors.
- pg 18y agoThe same way he became an expert on the level of expertise among "geeks" (whatever that means) in macroeconomics. Maybe his analysis is right, and maybe it isn't. But we judge him by what he says, not his credentials, and he should be willing to grant the same to people writing about economics. If you disagree with some specific argument, or even class of arguments, refute that. But blanket ad hominems lower the level of the conversation.
- davidw 18y ago> The same way he became an expert on the level of expertise among "geeks" (whatever that means) in macroeconomics. It's pretty easy to observe that amongst geeks (or at least those that post a lot on the internet), there are way more people, compared to society at large, who believe in what most actual economists consider to be fairly fringe theories, like "Austrian" economics. I think this is interesting enough in itself to warrant thinking about. To cite an example, this could be any number of people on this site: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=473812 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=473812 There's definitely lots of curiosity about the world there, which is definitely a hacker trait, but also this element of going from socialism to the another extreme, rather than, say, settling down somewhere in a range between, say, Krugman and Friedman, who are probably at two ends of mainstream economics. I'll also add: sometimes "extremes" are correct. The concept of the US was pretty extreme at the time. (Many?) other times, however, they aren't. Plenty of smart people thought communism was a pretty good idea, and we are lucky in the US that during the 30'ies, the most extreme we got was FDR, rather than the wild swings that were going on in Europe.
- pelle 18y agoI don't think you can consider Austrian school of economics nor the Chicago school fringe economics. Milton Friedman and Friedrick Hayek were hardly fringe loonies, but rather continued the free market tradition of classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. You mention that you should settle down in a range between Krugman and Friedman. These are so completely opposite in their beliefs that you would end up believing nothing. -1+1=0. There really is no such thing as one mainstream economics, most economists are in one of these two camps Free Market or Keynesian. I would also like to take issue with this using me as an example of "this element of going from socialism to the another extreme". I grew up in a society (Denmark) where Socialism and the particular flavor of Socialism (Democratic Socialism) I believed in was mainstream and not at all considered extreme. When I look at the beliefs I had, they were pretty much the same as mainstream democrats have in the US today. I can accept libertarianism as being extreme, but in most of the world democratic socialism is not considered extreme. I take pride in the fact that I was able to independently of anything but my own observations realize that this system, where I was living (Denmark) and my own party was corrupt and change the fundamental beliefs I had grown up on. Yes being a geek, who constantly question and optimizes things probably was an important part of this. I think just accepting the status quo is impossible for a hacker, or we wouldn't have tech startups, open source or any other tech project that wasn't sponsored by DARPA.
- elidourado 18y agoI am ABD in economics, and I use the following rule of thumb: If you think you understand macroeconomics, you are hopelessly lost. If you are thoroughly confused, you are beginning to understand. By the way, since people seem to be interested, I think the best macro book is Snowdon and Vane's Modern Macroeconomics. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1845422082/elidourado-20 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1845422082/elidourado...
- knieveltech 18y agoDoes anyone else find it highly entertaining that this post has resulted in a deluge of posts arguing various facets of economics? I can't help but wonder if this is a generational thing. I seem to recall that not too terribly long ago major geek pasttimes included hacking the local phone switching equipment and cruising usenet. Now we're on to debating economic theory esoterica. My how the times have changed.
- anthonyrubin 18y agoI'd like to offer an alternative theory: no one is an expert on macroeconomics. How much agreement is there between Friedrich Hayek, Paul Krugman, Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes and Ludwig von Mises? Claiming that someone is "right" about economics seems akin to claiming that someone is "right" about philosophy.
- pj 18y agoThis is linkbait, pure and simple. The author is trolling. Posting his own blog posts in HN knowing he'll start a flame war... The post was written specifically to do what it did... unfortunately. Move along folks, nothing to see here...
- c00p3r 18y agoWhy only economy? The football discussions is almost the same, but there are no experiments, because it is "a game"! (no, it is certainly not a show) Or this cosmo-style discussions? Seems like it is the way people prefer. This style has its name - 'blah-blah-blah'.
- mhartl 18y agoI'm not an expert on Catholicism. The Pope knows more about Catholic doctrine than I do. But I know something important about Catholicism that the Pope doesn't know. Mainstream macroeconomists are starting to look a lot like the Pope.