BS: Check the math

Subject: BS: Do The Math, Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 05:04 AM

grad student rocks economics world

His weapon? Arithmetic. Prestigious Harvard professors have poor excel skills.











prestige

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,Musket on his son's device
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 05:39 AM

I decided to type this before seeing who started it so it isn't stalking or persecuting..

And for the other 60% of readers, that translates as; Check the Maths.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 05:49 AM

Please try to stay on topic. BTW 60%? Check YOUR mathematics.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 07:15 AM

Economic theory based on a duff excel spreadsheet? Scary.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 07:27 AM

Speaking of mathematics, why is it that almost 100% of the negative comments about the minor usage and spelling differences between English as spoken in the UK and in the US come from UK posters? No American outside of some ignorant Bubba who's never read a book by a British author would ever comment on a British writer's use of "maths" instead of "math". He'd just assume the author was a Brit and continue reading. Is there some inherent need to be "right" about such matters built into the British psyche?

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,Musket sans cookie
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 07:51 AM

The clue is in the word.

English.

More importantly, winding up is a British trait. Made all the more fun when not appreciated.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:27 AM

This is TOO much. First I find points of agreement with Meyer, now with whoever Musket used to be.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,Musket sans Ian
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:35 AM

On that note Bridge, it reminds me of being introduced on stage by a mate who referred to me as "the artist formally known as a crock of shit."

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 09:26 AM

>>
English.

More importantly, winding up is a British trait. Made all the more fun when not appreciated. <<<

Being tedious surely seems to be something you enjoy. But I doubt that you speak for all of Britain.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,Musket sans sailor seaman
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 10:23 AM

I don't speak for all of our village.

Or our house.

Or even the bloke called Ian.

In fact I speak for one person who some agree with and others don't. About the only thing we have in common.

I seem to have the rationalists and you have the delusionists.

Wanna swap? I can argue bollocks just as badly as I argue rational reality.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 10:30 AM

Oh, I think you do, Mither.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 11:29 AM

I was once introduced on stage, as, the man about whom Bob Dylan said "Who?"

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: gnu
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 10:30 PM

Remember their name, John?

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 10:48 PM

Thank you Pete Jennings for reading the article and caring enough to comment.

I have to say it makes me question the whole field of economics. In science it is a matter of course to make the data methodology up for review so that others can critique it and try replicate it.

Considering the influence of the study, why wasn't this done immediately?

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 11:41 PM

There have been some interesting stories about this on Marketplace and All Things Considered. And the realization that a lot of the pain in the Eurozone, as nations are forced into austerity plans, is that they don't work and people knew they didn't work.

Not only is this influential, it was never peer reviewed, so whoever picked it up and ran with it never bothered to check if it passed the smell test in academic circles. Amazing how far it got, all things considered. And the damage it did.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 02:39 AM

I have to say it makes me question the whole field of economics. In science it is a matter of course to make the data methodology up for review so that others can critique it and try replicate it.

Considering the influence of the study, why wasn't this done immediately?

Indeed. There is a deep problem that has grown up over the last 50 years at least, which is that we treat economics as if it were a science based on hard facts, whereas it simply isn't. The respect given to science ultimately derives from things like the way it is demonstrable in repeatable experiments, and that peer review and criticism are built into every aspect of it. Economics in these respects is much closer to the way humanities develop, despite its mathematical glosses.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,Musket sans Ian
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 02:50 AM

Takes one to know one, Bridge.

Here, my neighbour has just bought an old Volvo and it keeps backfiring. Wouldn't be one of your cast offs would it? They say they grow to resemble their owners. ..

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 10:16 AM

Colbert weighs in.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/24/colbert-takes-on-umass-poindexter-who-debunked-pro-austerity-study/

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 10:39 AM

Mudeditors If someone complains about "Math" again please change the title to Check the methodology or Check the mathematics. Thanks!

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 10:58 AM

Economics has always been notoriously lousy at accurate predictions, even when the math was correct.

There are too many variables, too many unknowns, and not enough known about the actions of the known variables!

Remember that whenever you hear a politician quoting "economists."

Particularly since every party has tame ones who can make things come out to order even when they use accurate numbers. They make the facts fit the theory.

Remember all those optimistic "Five-Year Plans" that Moscow economists kept coming up with, promising enormous prosperity through centralized teamwork? Look what happened to them.

And let's not forget the capitalist economists of the 1920s. If any of them predicted a Great Depression, it's news to me.

The only economists I trust even slightly (and only as the best guessers available) are Nobel Prize winners, or nominees, unaffiliated with any political party.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Pete Jennings
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 11:21 AM

Never mind the math or maths debate, Colbert (who he?) uses the word "mathy"!

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 11:25 AM

All good points lighter,

But I think that this particular report set out to counter conventional economic thinking, supposedly with hard data, which make is especially confusing that the data wasn't checked.

The whole "austerity leads to prosperity" meme that some have been selling is about as credible as so called "trickle down." "economics"

This is one of the best refutations of trickle down dogma I have seen in a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBx2Y5HhplI

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 01:58 PM

Can anybody remember how to prove that 1 = 2? It has to do with positing that A=B, and then somehow you get to 1 = 2. It's a fun "catch the goof" thing for math classes...

Thread creep, apologies.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 02:17 PM

A classic.
Here it is:
http://www.math.toronto.edu/mathnet/falseProofs/first1eq2.html

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: gnu
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 03:09 PM

Watched the whole vid again, JtS, for the third time. Dunno why it glues me to the screen. It should be required viewing for everyone, everywhere.

Ecomomics. >> Economists. >> Economic Advisors. >> Smoke screen for thieves and politicians that are (employed by) thieves.

Subject: RE: BS: Check the math
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Apr 13 - 03:22 PM

Smoke screen for thieves and politicians that are thieves.

Yeah they do employ "economists"

But most serious economists don't go for that nonsense.

Here is a recent FB post of mine.

Here is what I think is happening. Here in North Carolina it is easy to see. Serious economists are doing (serious work). But Art Pope, whose "economics" education comes from reading Ayn Rand and whose money came from his father doesn't want to pay taxes. So he funds lectures at NC State University by "Conservative" economists. Where do "Conservative" economists come from? People like Pope pay Universities to "train" them.