Economic double standard

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: Cattlegod
Similar to engineering theories - economic theories rely on a ideal situations and rational people. Because ideal situations do not exist, and people are not rational, anomalies will be created.

I think there's even more to it. I think their economic theories are wrong even in an ideal situation.

Look at this article: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc...12/blodget-wall-street
Part of it talks about what happened in the real estate market. You'll see that at each point in the real estate buying chain, people were acting rationally. True, they weren't necessarily acting with perfect information (that's another problem. Economists seem to think that people and markets have perfect information. How exactly can information violate the laws of entropy and thermodynamics when nothing else can?) but then again perfect information is never available. If only economists would consider people to be heavily flawed and imperfect, their theories wouldn't be so nonsensical.

here is the thing, most economists know all this. Economists know that people don't have information and know they aren't rational. Unfortunately, they never teach business students about market failure, nash equilibriums, economic history, reality, etc; they just get the basic models and assume that that's how reality is. When i got into my intermediate micro theory class, the first thing that my professor said was that we should forget everything we learned in freshman classes.

And also, since economists have never been able to predict recession accurately, macroeconomics can't be considered a science.

actually, they are pretty good at that My models were predicting a recession starting for q1 2008 back in september/oct 2007, and a fairly strong one.

 

[larciel]

economic studies aren't at fault. it's the greed and politics of powerful nations that add poison.

It's a human nature to rule over weak, just like an animal. While there are many rational and thoughtful people, greed will take over most majority of people if and when they face it.

World will never be equal until human beings evaporate.

Only thing we could do is to not be swayed and live our daily lives with our beliefs.

Cheers

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Farang
not sure if you get to call yourself an economist without postgraduate qualifications

I'm not sure what you mean but I recently got my doctorate degree.

Congrats :beer:

Glad my economy threads helped :thumbsup:

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: larciel
economic studies aren't at fault. it's the greed and politics of powerful nations that add poison.

It's a human nature to rule over weak, just like an animal. While there are many rational and thoughtful people, greed will take over most majority of people if and when they face it.

World will never be equal until human beings evaporate.

Only thing we could do is to not be swayed and live our daily lives with our beliefs.

Cheers

So true

Mind over science is the rule now sadly.

 

[daishi5]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot

Originally posted by: JS80

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Farang
not sure if you get to call yourself an economist without postgraduate qualifications

I'm not sure what you mean but I recently got my doctorate degree.

Bullshit shens that a socialist fool like you could have a phd in economics. What school? The Soviet School of Communist Economics?

economists are generally center left, and certainly not free market hacks as a rule. Any economist worth his degree will have the brains to realize the true free market hypotheticals are based on a set of circumstances that do not exist in the real world, most notably that people are not rational all the time and that people do not have the information they need to make correct decisions.

The world is a complex place, and even the most advanced models can only provide basic insights into markets and society.

That is a straw man argument, most economic theories do not rest on any assumption that all people are rational, nor that any person is rational all the time.