Economics Questions

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Felipe — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:51:43 GMT

I learned economics with Samuelson's textbook, it was ok.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

revolutionist — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 03:46:10 GMT

revolutionist:

More dry powder over here... better duck out of this before it blows up...

Prophetic

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Caley McKibbin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:10:17 GMT

Now that the thread has died is a good time to mention that I was being a wee bit facetious.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:15:29 GMT

Chris:

Whether or not he was really just an imbecile that believed in what he was saying or whether he knew he was simply telling the government what they wanted to here to attain power and prestige is debatable.

That is part of my criteria. But there is something else important for everyone to recognize. Even in the case of an imbecile, it is a moral hazard to be passive on matters of power. Take the following scenario for demonstration:

An imbecile joins the KKK. He believes upon his observation that they are doing good for blacks. He donates money to help the cause and speaks out for them. Someone villifiies the KKK. Is it unfair for the imbecile to be villified by passive participation? No. It is part of the responsibility of being a person living in a society to be careful when affecting others. It seems to be a part of this thing known as common courtesy. You may have heard of it. If not, there is a vacant cage at the zoo. Is it unfair if he took great measures to learn about what his support was really doing. Still no. Everyone should have the fire right under his ass to remind him of what is at stake. It comes with playing with fire that you can get burned. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

This should be obviously reasonable to anyone proclaiming to care a great deal, or whatever, about people. Anyone who rather finds that the world is nought but a boardgame, the people are the pieces for his leisure ought to stfu about any pretense of compassion. I insist.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Chris — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:03:59 GMT

I personally don't think it's a good thing to wish death or illness or anything like that upon a person nor to rejoice when it happens. However, I do completely agree with those posting here that Samuelson (along with many other political hack "economists") caused a great deal of hardship and suffering in the world. The man explicitly advocated disastrous policies and was extremely influential in proliferating Keynesian nonsense and influencing politicians to implement these policies. Whether or not he was really just an imbecile that believed in what he was saying or whether he knew he was simply telling the government what they wanted to here to attain power and prestige is debatable. Either way he did advocate and proliferate nonsensenomics that made many people in the world far worse off.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 04:36:06 GMT

Esuric:

His work on free trade wasn't bad though.

Before or after he became anti-free trade?

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Esuric — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:18:08 GMT

thelion:

Samuelson died.

I am familiar with his writing.

His papers are rubbish.

One of them, 'proves' normal distribution and finite variance of price differences in the stock market by integrating a hypothetical function of behavior. Of course, if he integrated it, then he assumes its continuous; but if so, then it has finite variance by central limit theorem. That is to say, its derivative will have a normal distribution.

All his arguments are of this quality: 'A has finite variance because I assume it does.' All his math is just a way to make his work look better.

Again, for instance, he wrote a whole chapter on Leontief production input output and linear programming. But its so stupid. Why? That production function only has one input: labour. In other words, labour comes in, cars come out. Alchemy.

And he remarked, in one of his editions of his big textbook, that the Soviet Union is empirical proof of the prospering of central planning. Then in a year or two, the Soviet Union collapsed. He removed the statement.

Oh, and in another article, he 'disproves' all of Mandelbrot's work by saying he doesn't see how a 100% price difference can occur in 15( why 15?) minutes. Apparently he has never seen penny stocks, which have higher risk and fatter tails in the distribution.

Samuelson liked to make arguments via diversions and ad hominem, or using a single empirical example, which is often arbitrary. His writing is of the quality of Keynes in his General Theory; imprecise and informal to the point of being considered poor on an internet forum.

He read Gossen, and apparently liked him very much, it goes from MIT. But that obviously didn't change his views (since Gossen has a business cycle theory, a commodity standard theory, economic calculation argument, marginal quantities emphasized, and called communists, which includes Samuelson, "harebrained"). He liked Gossen because Gossen liked diagrams and formulated the nonlinear optimization conditions way back when; all the other stuff that is Gossen innovated, because Samuelson is sympathetic to socialism, doesn't count. What a superficial reader of books!

So, anyway, Samuelson's dead? 'So what?' as the famous word in economics are. He doesn't deserve special respect any more than someone who has contributed nothing to his science. What has he contributed to economics, in fact? Why are we worried if his page has been removed from the book of important names, if his name was never in the book of important names to begin with?

Would we be worried if a person who did nothing in his life die? No. Then why are we worried about Paul Samuelson?

haha, nice work. His work on free trade wasn't bad though. I mean I'm no expert, undergrad international eco doesn't really go too deep into it.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

thelion — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:12:22 GMT

Samuelson died.

I am familiar with his writing. It rubbish.

One of them, 'proves' normal distribution and finite variance of price differences in the stock market by integrating a hypothetical function of behavior. Of course, if he integrated it, then he assumes its continuous; but if so, then it has finite variance by central limit theorem. That is to say, its derivative will have a normal distribution. All his arguments are of this quality: 'A has finite variance because I assume it does.' All his math is just a way to make his work look better. In fact, I learned from his math that his argument is petitio principi.

Again, for instance, he wrote a whole chapter on Leontief production input output and linear programming. But its so stupid. Why? That production function only has one input: labour. In other words, labour comes in, cars come out. Alchemy.

And he remarked, famously, in one of his editions of his big textbook, that the Soviet Union is empirical proof of the prospering of central planning. Then in a year or two, the Soviet Union collapsed. He removed the statement. It that something a scientist does?

Oh, and in another article, he 'disproves' all of Mandelbrot's work by saying he doesn't see how a 100% price difference can occur in 15( why 15?) minutes. Apparently he has never seen penny stocks, which have higher risk and fatter tails in the distribution.

Samuelson liked to make arguments via diversions and ad hominem, or using a single empirical example, which is often arbitrary. His writing is of the quality of Keynes in his General Theory; imprecise and informal to the point of being considered poor on an internet forum.

He read Gossen, and apparently liked him very much, it goes from MIT. But that obviously didn't change his views (since Gossen has a business cycle theory, a commodity standard theory, economic calculation argument, marginal quantities emphasized, and called communists, which includes Samuelson, "harebrained"). He liked Gossen because Gossen liked diagrams and formulated the nonlinear optimization conditions way back when; all the other stuff that is Gossen innovated, because Samuelson is sympathetic to socialism, doesn't count. What a superficial reader of books!

So, anyway, Samuelson's dead? 'So what?' as the famous word in economics are. He doesn't deserve special respect any more than someone who has contributed nothing to his science. What has he contributed to economics, in fact? Why are we worried if his page has been removed from the book of important names, if his name was never in the book of important names to begin with?

Would we be worried if a person who did nothing in his life die? No. Then why are we worried about Paul Samuelson?

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

William — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:01:00 GMT

Student:

so he's less like Hitler and more like Gottfried Feder?

um, they are both economists sure. But beyond that I don't see the comparison.

I'm simply at a loss. Even if you dislike Keynesian economics, in fact, even if you think that Keynesian economics has been counterproductive in science and perhaps damaging in the real world of policy, how much have the damages been???? Can you measure them?

If not, can you at least describe the type of consequences of Keynesian economics that you believe cause "widespread misery" (as someone said)??? Is it Higher taxes? Slower economic growth and fewer jobs? And is comparable to anything Hitler has done or supported. Just think about this people. Do you ***really*** want to compare supporting government management of the business cycle through fiscal policy to supporting the genocide of the Jews!?!? HONESTLY!?!?

I can't believe I am having this conversation. Anyone making these arguments is clearly mad.

PS* Godwin's Law :P

Student, while I am pretty much in agreement with your temperament and reasoning thus far on this thread, a couple of things:

1) I think a somewhat reasonable argument can be made that a deliberate, malicious economic policy could be just as bad if not worse than what Hitler did (since Godwin's Law is in place, I may as well run with it). I think using the analogy of the frog in the cooking pot would fit well. What Hitler did was dramatic and broke major homeostatic mechanisms within German society and the world for a relatively brief period of time; after which his entire govt was disintegrated, so it gets easier noticed, measured, and criticized.

Now if a Dr. Doom or a Gorilla Grodd seized power and installed economic policy X, an economic platform that is aimed to very gradually impoverish the many in favor of the few (or perhaps gradually impoverish his most disliked minority group) may lead to just as bad consequences and more importantly has a chance to be much more effective and a much bigger chance to get away with it.

Note: I am NOT saying Keynesian economics is that policy, nor am I saying a scientist should be blamed for a leading politicians actions, just that I see how it is possible for people to blame economic systems for massive evil; in fact, people do it all the time with Capitalism, Feudalism, and Socialism I don't see how Keynesianism should be much of a surprise to anyone.

2) I think for some people on this thread the mere concept of Keynesianism is in opposition to their ideals. It may be akin to saying you have “economic system X” that shows we would be much more economically efficient if we just enslaved group X. Even if it happened to be true, I could see many people protesting based off of deeply held ideological principles

.Now, while I do not think Keynesianism is THAT bad ideologically as the example I illustrated above, I suspect many people here may feel that way, hence why you are seeing such a hostile reaction by some to some man's death. Regardless that would most likely be a debate for another thread.

That being said, at worst Samuelson was a bad scientist. And unless evidence can prove otherwise an intellectually honest one who had no deliberate malicious intent on causing massive poverty, nor did he force his thoughts into action on anyone. People feeling ecstatic about his death are displaying disappointing behavior on several different levels.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Vitor — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:39:53 GMT

I haven't cheered his death at any single moment. I just said that he was a quite shitty economist who commited some serious mistakes that would lead many people to ostracism, but he could keep his glamour and reputation by presenting himself as an economical wizard for the guys in Washington. May he rest in peace.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:08:09 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Of course, there is the fact that in an edition of the General Theory, Keynes stated that his ideas would work best in a country like Nazi Germany. Krugman, et al, forget that fact.

Not to mention Goebbels commending FDR for dealing with the depression the same way as them.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Caley McKibbin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:05:04 GMT

Knight_of_BAAWA:

Student:
Paul Samuelson never occupied a position of political decision making power.
No. He merely had some pull to be able to write a textbook and have more pull to get it used at most colleges. He wanted his bully pulpit.

Where did I see that quote of Samuelson escalating writing the nation's economics texts above writing its laws? I guess he preferred writing the books because he thought it was less powerful. /sarcasm

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Knight_of_BAAWA — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:49:19 GMT

Of course, there is the fact that in an edition of the General Theory, Keynes stated that his ideas would work best in a country like Nazi Germany. Krugman, et al, forget that fact.

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

Jonathan M. F. Catalán — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:28:58 GMT

Krugman published a short blog post, ridiculing the comparison between Samuelson and Eichmann. I commented (reproduced here, while it awaits moderation) with my usual attempt to remain "mainstream", but at the same time make a libertarian point. Of the comments already posted I liked was Bill Ferensen's:

Which is more juvenile: making idiotic comparisons between Keynesianism and Nazism, or quoting such a comparison for the sole purpose of implying that anyone who who is anti-Keynesian shares this belief?

Re: Paul Samuelson has died

nirgrahamUK — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:24:24 GMT

Student:
*I* am the one asking others to explain specifics about why they think Samuelson's views or economic work generated "wide spread misery"

Oh, I was assuming you were familiar with the Mises, Rothbard Tradition..... my bad.