Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk

[Richard Fiero]

Tim May wrote:

On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:21 AM, Bill Stewart wrote:

Perhaps the field has changed since I was in college, but back then,
academic econometrics had the reputation of being dominated by Marxists -
. . .
I'll provide a data point about what corporations want: they 
hire a _lot_ of MBAs, but not a lot of economists. Sure, 
MBAs have to complete a series of econ courses, probably based 
on Samuelson and the various micro- and macro-econ courses, 
but mostly corporations are seeking those with tools to manage 
businesses, markets, product lines, etc. Classical economics is not a focus.

And as Bill said in another post, Samuelson generated a very 
big book mainly (it seems) to sell more copies. Sort of like 
similar big books in molecular biology and organic chemistry.

--Tim May

Much of Microsoft's and Intel's profits of last year were from 
investment income, not from selling product. You really think a 
startup MBA and an Intel MBA get together, believe each other's 
line of bullshit and do a deal? Fucken grow up. A trillion 
dollars a day sloshes around in currency market transactions, 
every day. MBAs again, I'm sure. Best of all, corporate 
planning is not central planning. What a fucken laugh!

Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk

[Richard Fiero]

Faustine wrote:

Quoting Jim Choate [EMAIL PROTECTED]:

  On Sun, 22 Apr 2001, Richard Fiero wrote:
 
   James A. Donald wrote:
 . . .
   You are implying that libertarian analysis is unscientific and not
   academically respectable.  But much of it, most famously that by
  David
   Friedman, is as hard core as anyone would wish, and on certain
  topics, it
   is a lot more hard core than most universities would prefer.
  
   Oh, what science is that? Economics is not a science.

What about econometrics? It seems to belong in the same 
conceptual category as
mathematics, statistics, operations research, etc. I dont 
think econometricians
would generally appreciate being called softies...

I think any economic theory worth its salt requires good data 
obtained by some
kind of scientific methodology. Some economic theories are 
more scientific than
others, it all depends on the approach.

Kind of reminds me of this nuclear physicist I knew who heaped scorn on
economics as 'soft' every chance he got. But then, he also had reservations
about including the life sciences (like biology) as 'hard 
science' i.e, 'real'
science. And heaven help the person who got him started on psychology and
sociology. I guess some people are just more hard core than others!


~Faustine.
. . .

Agreed. There are some nested quotes above. I'd never attempt 
to criticize for being unscientific. My response was to James 
A. Donald's troll which stated that one kind of economics was 
more scientific than another. Now James A. Donald can talk 
circles around me any day and has a long and exemplary history 
which I'll not attempt to summarize here.
With respect to measuring things, econometricians do measure 
things, lots of things. Is what is being measured even 
interesting? Now for the interesting part-- what is David 
Friedman doing and why does what he is doing resonate here? You can read him at
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/
or buy his books. It seems to me he is doing game theory, 
auction markets and jurisprudence. The foundations of the most 
successful economies on the planet and studies which are 
sanctioned in scientific circles, CalTech for one. However, I 
read Marx, Keynes and Hayek. Those, for example, who state that 
California power deregulation has failed because it is not 
deregulated enough are theologians in my view. I also note that 
the supply/demand graph on page three of any Econ 101 text has 
really dark, bold lines because it's a total fiction and has no 
basis other than being a very useful fiction.
About Faustine's pal who scorns soft sciences: it's what you 
get for hanging out with libertarians.