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"Left wing kookiness"
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. |
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