On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 21:44:02 -0500, vincent p. norris
wrote:

Economics is a subset of psychology - psychology applied to
matters of money, assets, liabilities, production, buying
and selling, that sort of thing.

That's not even in the ball park! Have you ever read an economics
text?

Yes, I have. I had to read one to help my ex-wife pass an
econ class. She didn't understand it, but I did.

You may *think* you did, but you didn't.

Do you have any idea of how easy that argument is to turn
around? "I understand economics, but you only think you
do." Not exactly overwhelming.

The closest economics comes to being "psychological" (and it's about
as "close " as the North Pole is to the South Pole) is in making the
assumption that people always behave "rationally." I.e., that
entrepreneurs maximize profit by equating marginal cost with marginal
revenue and that consumers "equate at the margin" so that the last
penny spent on every good and service provides the same amount of
"utility" (want-satisfaction).

You just described applied psychology

No, I didn't. Psychologists *study* human behavior. Economic theory
is based on an *assumption* about behavior, an extremely naive one,
and proceeds from there, with no study of behavior to investigate that
assumption.

Economists certainly do study human reactions to the
economic variables - tax rates, interest rates, monetary
creation, regulations, etc. You seem to think there is a
single "economic theory" - shared by everyone from Paul
Samuelson to Arthur Laffer. Not so. They do not agree
about economic behavior resulting from economic policies and
conditions. And they do study it - that's what all their
graphs and projections are about - not rocks on the other
side of the moon - economic behavior.

I don't recall any economist claiming that people always behave rationally.

See above.

Your point being...???

My point is, your original post is incorrect, as well as what you said
here. (BTW, "being" is not a verb.)

I stand by my original and follow-up posts. Are you an
English teacher, grading usenet posts for grammar? If so,
you really have your work cut out for you.

Are you sure that book you read with your wife wasn't about HOME
economics?

tsk, tsk...

--
Robert Sturgeon,
proud member of the vast right wing conspiracy
and the evil gun culture.