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Sorry, what do you mean "OP is misinterpreting Friedman's paper"? I don't think there's much "interpretation" here. He's basically saying: here is a paper about

by marris 14y ago

Sorry, what do you mean "OP is misinterpreting Friedman's paper"? I don't think there's much "interpretation" here. He's basically saying: here is a paper about X. It is titled "X". And I'm also confused by what you mean by "the OP has made up this 'Friedman's Thermostat'"... seriously, what does that mean? Friedman wrote a paper on Friedman's Thermostat. So how could OP [whoever that is, I assume you mean Nick Rowe] have "made it up"?

chiquitabacana 14y ago
the article is "the FED's thermostat" as an analogy about the Fed's. There is no "Thermostat Theory" it's just a title, not a general theory.
- marris 14y ago
  Huh? Yes, "thermostat" is used as an analogy (by both Friedman and Rowe). But the article is not claiming that there is a "general thermostat theory." He's talking about one idea (there may be no measured correlation under targeting) and asking why this is not more widely known, especially since the abstract idea seems more widely applicable (to fields other than monetary theory and applied econometrics). The inverse of Rowe's claim is that this idea is well known (maybe under a different name). Are you arguing that? If so, then by what name?
  - chiquitabacana 14y ago
    He's saying two things: 1) I am the only one who knows about this terminology I invented? ("maybe under some other name?", well, how could people know for this name? You invented on your blog, for christ's sake. Obviously you are the first result on Google. Egomaniac.) 2) Then he talks about this abstract Idea, which he thinks is not well known. About the first topic. WTF. About the second topic, not sure if it's such an ignored aspect, but ok, it's a valid point.
    - marris 14y ago
      OK, I see where you're coming from. I don't think he's saying 1). But then again, I've been reading him for a while, so I had a bit of context. If this had been a random one-time post on some guy's blog, then sure, I'd probably think 1).
pretoriusB 14y ago
>Friedman wrote a paper on Friedman's Thermostat. No he didn't. He just used the WORD "thermostat" once, in an article. And his use of the word was unrelated to the concept presented in the blog post (which is not Friedman's but older and which nobody calls "Friedman's thermostat" except the author of the blog post). Here's an analogy for the situation: David Pogue writes and article titled "The perfect gadget for Christmas", which is simply a review of 10 hot current gadgets. Then, 30 years later, some blogger writes "How come nobody knows "Pogue's Perfect Gadget" theory? You know the one that says that when you put a cat inside a gadget's enclosure with a quantum based poisoning device the cat's state is both dead and alive?" He then goes to admit that idea: is not Pogues, it was found earlier, and nobody calls it that -- all the while complaining why people don't know it by his made up name "whereas they do some other Pogue's articles". The whole blog post smells crank to me...
- marris 14y ago
  Let's get the obvious out of the way: The thermostat concept is an analogy. In Friedman's original article, it's being used to describe money supply targeting [not real thermostats]. Nick Rowe is abstracting away some of the specifics of Friedman's article, but he's talking about the same concept : how active targeting of one measure can achieve desirable changes in another one while still showing no/little correlation between the two. Rowe is also applying that abstraction to another concrete example: the pedals in a car driving in a hilly area.

by marris 14y ago

chiquitabacana 14y ago

the article is "the FED's thermostat" as an analogy about the Fed's. There is no "Thermostat Theory" it's just a title, not a general theory.

marris 14y ago
Huh? Yes, "thermostat" is used as an analogy (by both Friedman and Rowe). But the article is not claiming that there is a "general thermostat theory." He's talking about one idea (there may be no measured correlation under targeting) and asking why this is not more widely known, especially since the abstract idea seems more widely applicable (to fields other than monetary theory and applied econometrics). The inverse of Rowe's claim is that this idea is well known (maybe under a different name). Are you arguing that? If so, then by what name?
- chiquitabacana 14y ago
  He's saying two things: 1) I am the only one who knows about this terminology I invented? ("maybe under some other name?", well, how could people know for this name? You invented on your blog, for christ's sake. Obviously you are the first result on Google. Egomaniac.) 2) Then he talks about this abstract Idea, which he thinks is not well known. About the first topic. WTF. About the second topic, not sure if it's such an ignored aspect, but ok, it's a valid point.
  - marris 14y ago
    OK, I see where you're coming from. I don't think he's saying 1). But then again, I've been reading him for a while, so I had a bit of context. If this had been a random one-time post on some guy's blog, then sure, I'd probably think 1).

pretoriusB 14y ago

>Friedman wrote a paper on Friedman's Thermostat. No he didn't. He just used the WORD "thermostat" once, in an article. And his use of the word was unrelated to the concept presented in the blog post (which is not Friedman's but older and which nobody calls "Friedman's thermostat" except the author of the blog post). Here's an analogy for the situation: David Pogue writes and article titled "The perfect gadget for Christmas", which is simply a review of 10 hot current gadgets. Then, 30 years later, some blogger writes "How come nobody knows "Pogue's Perfect Gadget" theory? You know the one that says that when you put a cat inside a gadget's enclosure with a quantum based poisoning device the cat's state is both dead and alive?" He then goes to admit that idea: is not Pogues, it was found earlier, and nobody calls it that -- all the while complaining why people don't know it by his made up name "whereas they do some other Pogue's articles". The whole blog post smells crank to me...

marris 14y ago
Let's get the obvious out of the way: The thermostat concept is an analogy. In Friedman's original article, it's being used to describe money supply targeting [not real thermostats]. Nick Rowe is abstracting away some of the specifics of Friedman's article, but he's talking about the same concept : how active targeting of one measure can achieve desirable changes in another one while still showing no/little correlation between the two. Rowe is also applying that abstraction to another concrete example: the pedals in a car driving in a hilly area.