Stay Classy Republicans.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I should become an economist.  I'm great at making unreasonable assumptions, might as well get paid for it.

Me, too.  I could put all these years of going off half-cocked on PD to use.

[Remington]

This is normally the part where I'd be copping the smug (yet polite) Canadian attitude, but chances are Harper is going to try some shit like this in the next couple years. Stupid bastard's trying to emulate the States.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is normally the part where I'd be copping the smug (yet polite) Canadian attitude, but chances are Harper is going to try some shit like this in the next couple years. Stupid bastard's trying to emulate the States.

Canada always does that.

I can give you some examples, if you like.

[Remington]

Canada always does that.

I can give you some examples, if you like.

Nah, I'm good.

Japanese Internment of WW2 and American/Canadian Idol should keep me wrathing for a good while yet.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Nah, I'm good.

Japanese Internment of WW2 and American/Canadian Idol should keep me wrathing for a good while yet.

You're sure?  It gets better.

[Remington]

You're sure?  It gets better.

Doesn't it always.

Harper's got his work cut out for him on this front, though. The public healthcare system is extremely well-liked.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Doesn't it always.

Harper's got his work cut out for him on this front, though. The public healthcare system is extremely well-liked.

Nu-uh.  Rush Limbaugh says you all hate it, but you can't do anything about it because you're stuck in a socialist dictatorship.

[Remington]

Nu-uh.  Rush Limbaugh says you all hate it, but you can't do anything about it because you're stuck in a socialist dictatorship.

THEY FORCE US TO RECEIVE PROMPT AND EFFICIENT MEDICAL CARE, EVEN AGAINST OUR WILL! TELL THE OTHmmmmppff

[AFK]

Also, from the article, the laugh of the week:

Many economists believe employers would boost pay if they didn't provide health care.

   

I believe many economists need to lay off the wacky tabacky.  

[Cain]

Many economists are, uh, paid liars.  Like lawyers, only, if lawyers keep losing cases, they eventually wont get hired.  Economists can keep getting it wrong and stay in gainful employment until they drop dead.

[Jasper]

See, I could do that.  I would even wear a fat suit and get old age stipple to make me seem authoritative.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

 

What kind of idiotic stupidity is that?!?!?!

[Jasper]

The kind that gets you MAD BANK.

[Cain]

Quoth Trollblog:

I've devised three mental-experiment tests for whether something is a science or not. First, the veil of ignorance test. Suppose that you were knowledgeable about economics and all you knew about someone was that they were a new summa cum laude PhD from an unnamed top-twenty school. How much confidence would you have in the guy? Are there some schools whose graduates you would be doubtful about?

Second, is it possible to write a test which would accurately select competent economists, with few false positives or false negatives, except by simply arbitrarily declaring the answers of one school or another to be right? You don't have schools of physics or chemistry; these scientists disagree on the frontiers of their sciences and often are fairly ignorant of fields distant from their own, but you don't have never-ending controversies about fundamental issues.

Third, the professionalism test. Is it possible for an economist to be disbarred or defrocked? Is there some level of misconduct, ignorance, or public dishonesty which would require that an economist be drummed out of the profession? Is there any internal discipline within the profession? Are there even any possible ways of knowing that an economist is wrong? Or is the PhD a license to say whatever you want to say about economics, no matter how ridiculous, and still be called an expert?

My guess is that economics passes none of these tests, though it is probably closer to doing so than psychology. I would guess that physics and chemistry pass the first two without being much concerned for the third. As for the third, medicine and law have rather low standards of ethics, but economics seems to have none. (Like law and medicine, but unlike physics, on the whole, economics is an applied science, which is why the ethics question is necessary).

My claim is that economics, like most social sciences, is too ill-formed, inconsistent, incomplete, and unempirical to be a real science in the sense that economists themselves use the word, and that it is for this reason that you have warring schools of economics, and it is for this reasons that economist political hacks are able to get away with saying pretty much anything. (Brad DeLong claimed that Mankiw's professional reputation was destroyed during his tenure with George W. Bush. Is there any real evidence that this actually happened?)

Due to the complexity of the material studied, it strikes me as impossible that any social science will ever attain the level of scientificity and success that they hope for (and, whenever they think they can get away with it, brag about.) This isn't really a failure; it's just the way things are. I would actually be willing to renorm the definition of science enough to allow economics in, but that would defeat the economists' purpose, since their goal is to become a magical science like physics, a science which can solve all the world's problems, a science that will make them heroes, the only real social science and not just one of several. And the renormed definition ("a science that has a lot of interesting things to say and provides valuable rules of thumb") isn't what they want.

Probably, soon enough, the profession will dig up someone who got The Great Moderation right, thus proving once again that economics is too (in Lazear's words) "a real science". The problem is that , while economics may have all the right answers there on the shelf somewhere, they're still mixed in indistinguishably with all the wrong answers. They say that Popper's falsificationism has been refuted, but it's my understanding that physics, for example, (unlike economics) has two different shelves, and has definite procedures and practices making it possible to move things from the right-answer shelf to the wrong-answer shelf, procedures that do not entail ruining everything for everyone.

[The Johnny]

Quoth Trollblog:

Quote
I've devised three mental-experiment tests for whether something is a science or not. First, the veil of ignorance test. Suppose that you were knowledgeable about economics and all you knew about someone was that they were a new summa cum laude PhD from an unnamed top-twenty school. How much confidence would you have in the guy? Are there some schools whose graduates you would be doubtful about?

Second, is it possible to write a test which would accurately select competent economists, with few false positives or false negatives, except by simply arbitrarily declaring the answers of one school or another to be right? You don't have schools of physics or chemistry; these scientists disagree on the frontiers of their sciences and often are fairly ignorant of fields distant from their own, but you don't have never-ending controversies about fundamental issues.

Third, the professionalism test. Is it possible for an economist to be disbarred or defrocked? Is there some level of misconduct, ignorance, or public dishonesty which would require that an economist be drummed out of the profession? Is there any internal discipline within the profession? Are there even any possible ways of knowing that an economist is wrong? Or is the PhD a license to say whatever you want to say about economics, no matter how ridiculous, and still be called an expert?

My guess is that economics passes none of these tests, though it is probably closer to doing so than psychology. I would guess that physics and chemistry pass the first two without being much concerned for the third. As for the third, medicine and law have rather low standards of ethics, but economics seems to have none. (Like law and medicine, but unlike physics, on the whole, economics is an applied science, which is why the ethics question is necessary).

My claim is that economics, like most social sciences, is too ill-formed, inconsistent, incomplete, and unempirical to be a real science in the sense that economists themselves use the word, and that it is for this reason that you have warring schools of economics, and it is for this reasons that economist political hacks are able to get away with saying pretty much anything. (Brad DeLong claimed that Mankiw's professional reputation was destroyed during his tenure with George W. Bush. Is there any real evidence that this actually happened?)

Due to the complexity of the material studied, it strikes me as impossible that any social science will ever attain the level of scientificity and success that they hope for (and, whenever they think they can get away with it, brag about.) This isn't really a failure; it's just the way things are. I would actually be willing to renorm the definition of science enough to allow economics in, but that would defeat the economists' purpose, since their goal is to become a magical science like physics, a science which can solve all the world's problems, a science that will make them heroes, the only real social science and not just one of several. And the renormed definition ("a science that has a lot of interesting things to say and provides valuable rules of thumb") isn't what they want.

Probably, soon enough, the profession will dig up someone who got The Great Moderation right, thus proving once again that economics is too (in Lazear's words) "a real science". The problem is that , while economics may have all the right answers there on the shelf somewhere, they're still mixed in indistinguishably with all the wrong answers. They say that Popper's falsificationism has been refuted, but it's my understanding that physics, for example, (unlike economics) has two different shelves, and has definite procedures and practices making it possible to move things from the right-answer shelf to the wrong-answer shelf, procedures that do not entail ruining everything for everyone.